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It's send the email that usually unblocks the problem. The tension is gone and suddenly one is using all the right search words!
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Yes. This. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Not search words - describing the problem in text (or verbally) somehow condenses it to something that offers options (or eliminates them, also good). If I were to blame it on any particular concept it would be the need to "crystallize" the problem instead of letting it float around as a nebulous adversary. I couldn't say how that improves things - or for that matter, if it's the path from one mode to the other that does it.
Or, maybe just flapping my gum?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I find that having managed to describe the problem, and plucked up the courage to send/post the query, that up re-reading the sent message, in a more relaxed state, some key phrase that I used can be searched for (OK so it's Google, but there are others).
Usually that search then comes up with a lot better answers, or at least clarifiers, for the problem.
Essentially it's a bit of Analysis Paralysis that stops one from 'seeing the woods for the trees' (or is that 'wood for the trees'?) while preparing the description, but once sent, the relaxation allows me to finally see the core part. It's that while the problem has been 'crystallised', it's still buried in the dirt of the broader message. The old 20/20 hindsight!
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can't see the forest for the trees.
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I think it's that you try to describe precisely, completely, what's - oh no, that's not quite right - ( and correcting yourself ) - and trying to give a clear explanation - and finding you were thinking wrong there or...
Yeah, examining both the overall and the details. And each part of the explanation you think about and correct as you give it.
( At least that's how my brain dis-functions. )
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Not a bad description.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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For a long time I've said that my superpower is that people ask me for help. Then, without me doing anything, the problem is solved. This was awesome when I worked a job doing desktop support via phone.
Now you've made me question if it was my superpower or the other people's.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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Keeping it simple: who that someone was.[^]
Actually it was neither your super power nor theirs. Just a bit of 'runoff' from my super powers.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Get a rubber duck. Mine is an excellent listener and solves problems that I can't. 
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Does a rubber chicken work? I could wave it over my code
Real programmers use butterflies
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I've never tried it, but the secret with a duck is explaining the problem in detail so that the duck can solve it.
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Hmmm. I'm suspicious of ducks in general. I wonder if one wouldn't lead me astray.
Real programmers use butterflies
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The duck is your alter ego and confidant, so I doubt it!
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Yeah I have one of those. It taught me to read at 3.
A shrink called it a "partially integrated identity" or some such, but they like to label crazy.
I just call it Scout. When it first came to me I didn't give it a name.
It's very helpful, and maybe where most of my intellectual and particularly my analytical heft comes from.
I bury it in the wiring for years at a time but it's still there doing stuff, I'm sure, because I don't get stupid when it's "gone."
Or maybe I'm just loopy. That's as likely. Whatever. It helps me code and build stuff. I like that.
Real programmers use butterflies
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The rubber duck is your familiar, mediating between you and the Powers that enable you to program.
At times the S/N ratio on the channel goes too low, so the Powers cannot get through. It is then that giving your duck some attention (and a small sacrifice, e.g. your firstborn...) can really pay off. Get on the wrong side of your duck, and you will program nevermore!
Is that "New Agey" enough, or should I insert some psychobabble as well?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Okay, I can make some sense of that. I would have pictured a cat though. I have a black one who is slightly cross eyed and whose tail and ears are too big for the rest of him. He is my familiar. What do I tell him? 
Real programmers use butterflies
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No, a real chicken is required
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HR warned me off of doing that again. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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That just gets the Ernie voice singing[^] in my head.
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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As I am perhaps one of the greatest developers of all time, I've never understood the Imposter Syndrome thing? 
In all seriousness, you've written some very cool stuff. How in the world could you ever doubt your competence?
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Thank you. Well I guess we all have a few failed projects under our belt. I can always count on the committee in my head to remind me of that. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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I hate it when people ask me good questions. I like stupid questions that I can answer quickly off the top of my head without thinking. Good questions I have to think about for awhile and maybe even do some research. The only upside of good questions is I usually learn something also.
So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.
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I've found that in life the right question is worth several right answers.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I've found that in life the right question is worth several right answers.
But sadly you don't always get them 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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