Get Up And Walk Around moments
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When I hit a snag and have no idea what else to try, I usually get, take a walk outside and when I return, I normally have some idea of what to try next, etc, until it's solved and time for a bourbon on the rocks.
Did you ever try to explain the problem to your rubber duck? I, and many others, can tell you that it works! A slightly modified variation: Write the documentation for it. Both the user/API documentation explaining how it is intended to be used, and the detailed maintenance documentation, explaining the data structures and the processing logic. Besides: Then the documentation is there, when someone asks for it! For non-programming stuff, I have been using a further slightly modified way. I really never thoroughly understood how a gyro works. How a heat pump works. How genetics and inheritance works. The chemistry of a battery ... So in my imagination, I keep alive gang of smart junior high school kids in a "Young Scientist Club" giving presentations of various stuff to their schoolmates. As I gradually learn more about a topic, I write it down as these young people's 'lecture' to their schoolmates - including the questions they receive from their audience when something is not clear. The rubber duck is a children's toy. A child needs to have things explained simply and clearly, yet in a correct manner. And you must be prepared for (sometimes shockingly) logic questions about why and how. Pretending that your rubber duck is that oh, so logic kid asking 'why' is a great help. Letting them materialize as an audience, and forcing that simple and clear explanation into a kid's presentation is mostly a way of 'formalizing' it, but for me, it has great value. This is an excellent way to force yourself to really get a thorough basic understanding, extract the fundamental ideas in a simple way, making sure that all you say (while impersonating one of the "young scientists") is correct, even if in a simple form. And the question part pinpoints what you have not yet mastered: I write down, as question from the audience, all those nasty 'sorry, I do not have a good answer to that', and then keep up my search for information on the field so that I can provide and answer. I rewrite 'lectures' all the time: If I manage to express my newly acquired understanding in simple terms, it goes into the basic presentation, but to keep the presentation at the simple level, some advanced parts must be kept as question/answer. It it definitely a goal to get as much as possible into such simple terms that they can be included in the basic presentation. This is a great way of learning, in a way that ensures that you really understand the problem completely, that you know how to bring your understanding
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Of course, I'm talking about the dog, 2nd fastest land animal on Earth (1st is the cheetah). They can accelerate from a standstill to 40 mph in six strides. Retired racers make great pets; "world's fastest couch potato" is a common description :-D .
Software Zen:
delete this;They are amazing to watch when they do zoomies, we have a few rescues (ex racers) that walk the beach with us in the morning, poor bloody labs just watch on in consternation of the flying streaks as they tear up and down the sand having a great time.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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trønderen wrote:
Did you ever calculate the acceleration in terms of g load?
No, but he develops considerable momentum (he weighs around 75 pounds). When we first got him it took a while to find a fencing contractor, so we put him outside on a steel cable attached to a tree to use the bathroom. We bought a collar that included plastic hardware, but was guaranteed for large dogs - 100 pounds and up. One day he caught sight of a cat, took off running, reached the end of the cable, and did not stop. The collar hardware shattered and off he went. Fortunately I was watching and chased off after him. The good news was he still needed to pee and when he stopped to do that I caught up to him.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
One day he caught sight of a cat, took off running, reached the end of the cable, and did not stop.
We may be sidetracking quite a bit here, but ... My dogs, several years ago, were great teddy bears, but not exactly greyhounds ... They were St.Bernhards, 75-80 kg (and at that time, that was lightweight, for a St.Bernhard!). My first dog of course couldn't follow a cat making twists and turns, but he could get into speed down a straight street. He did, getting into considerable speed. The cat jumped into a lawn, and he followed. The lawn had an area protected by a dense fir hedgerow. The cat flew under it. My 80 St.Bernhard tried to do the same. The earth shook. It is a great wonder none of the the hedge firs were pulled up by the root. Anyone claiming that animals have no feelings, can feel no shame, have never seen my dog that day. His tail was so tightly pressed against his belly that the tip almost reached his mouth. He refused to look me in the eye for at least an hour or two, searching for corners where he could hide. I guess our laughs (we did laugh!) didn't improve matters. But after all, we were his pack, so he gradually realized that our comforting strokes were honest signs of unity and support, and he relaxed. I believe that this episode was essential to strengthen the bonds between him and us as a pack. OK, so we did laugh when it happened, but he showed his feelings to us, and we clearly signaled: Yet you are one of us! We are still accepting you, we will comfort you. Straighten up, you are a good boy!
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Of course, I'm talking about the dog, 2nd fastest land animal on Earth (1st is the cheetah). They can accelerate from a standstill to 40 mph in six strides. Retired racers make great pets; "world's fastest couch potato" is a common description :-D .
Software Zen:
delete this;Sleeps up to 20 hours a day, runs like s**t off a shovel. Sighthounds are great.
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I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
Sure, there's a whole proces. For me often like this: Agitation, walking around and most succesfully, going to the toilet, the idea hits home in a double relief, anticipation walking back to confirm and often yeah, Victory! Then, a bit of an inward, not seeing much, complete rest, hardly a heartbeat and feeling good.
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I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
I remember the moment I wrote my first ever function (1994) in what was then called Access Basic. I had taken one class in Turbo Pascal up to that point, but didn't understand it. I was handy with spreadsheets and understood what functions were. But I was trying to bridge over to databases, and everything looked strange. I don't remember what my function did, but I remember straining to understand how to solve a certain problem I was having at the moment, then having a flash of understanding how a function would help me. I distinctly remember getting up to take a walk around the building on my college campus where I was. I don't really have a victory ritual as such these days. It feels like every victory comes a dozen more action items.
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I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
In baseball terms it's called a homerun
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They are amazing to watch when they do zoomies, we have a few rescues (ex racers) that walk the beach with us in the morning, poor bloody labs just watch on in consternation of the flying streaks as they tear up and down the sand having a great time.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
they tear up and down the sand having a great time
The joy they feel when they run is amazing. When I first adopted Bacchus, we thought like everyone else; they had to be 'forced' to run and were subject to cruel treatment if they didn't. Nothing could be further from the truth. You haven't seen real joy until you've watched them. Even when they're very old and reduced to a slow trot, they love running. That's why I refer to Bacchus as a retired racer rather than a rescue. He's a professional athlete who retired due to an injury (broken ankle, easily fixed but no more racing). His trainer called us twice after we adopted him to see how he was doing. Those folks love these animals; that's not cruelty.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
I am 66, I agree with the walk around time involved in some projects. I started out writing assembly code, some new, some "maintenance" which really meant chasing down reasons why the code misbehaved. Right now I am back in the embedded C (not C++) world in what will probably be my last full time job. The company is looking to move from one hardware platform to another and what is now stable code will become unstable once the switch starts. I have been tasked with understanding twenty year old code with an eye towards adapting it to new hardware - not rewrite but re-fit. Going to be fun.
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I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
Absolutely. It is time to take half a day off. But first I have to deal with the urgent bodily needs that have been building up while I've been so concentrated on the task.
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
One day he caught sight of a cat, took off running, reached the end of the cable, and did not stop.
We may be sidetracking quite a bit here, but ... My dogs, several years ago, were great teddy bears, but not exactly greyhounds ... They were St.Bernhards, 75-80 kg (and at that time, that was lightweight, for a St.Bernhard!). My first dog of course couldn't follow a cat making twists and turns, but he could get into speed down a straight street. He did, getting into considerable speed. The cat jumped into a lawn, and he followed. The lawn had an area protected by a dense fir hedgerow. The cat flew under it. My 80 St.Bernhard tried to do the same. The earth shook. It is a great wonder none of the the hedge firs were pulled up by the root. Anyone claiming that animals have no feelings, can feel no shame, have never seen my dog that day. His tail was so tightly pressed against his belly that the tip almost reached his mouth. He refused to look me in the eye for at least an hour or two, searching for corners where he could hide. I guess our laughs (we did laugh!) didn't improve matters. But after all, we were his pack, so he gradually realized that our comforting strokes were honest signs of unity and support, and he relaxed. I believe that this episode was essential to strengthen the bonds between him and us as a pack. OK, so we did laugh when it happened, but he showed his feelings to us, and we clearly signaled: Yet you are one of us! We are still accepting you, we will comfort you. Straighten up, you are a good boy!
That poor baby... :laugh:
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Sleeps up to 20 hours a day, runs like s**t off a shovel. Sighthounds are great.
Brilliant! :-D
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Did you ever try to explain the problem to your rubber duck? I, and many others, can tell you that it works! A slightly modified variation: Write the documentation for it. Both the user/API documentation explaining how it is intended to be used, and the detailed maintenance documentation, explaining the data structures and the processing logic. Besides: Then the documentation is there, when someone asks for it! For non-programming stuff, I have been using a further slightly modified way. I really never thoroughly understood how a gyro works. How a heat pump works. How genetics and inheritance works. The chemistry of a battery ... So in my imagination, I keep alive gang of smart junior high school kids in a "Young Scientist Club" giving presentations of various stuff to their schoolmates. As I gradually learn more about a topic, I write it down as these young people's 'lecture' to their schoolmates - including the questions they receive from their audience when something is not clear. The rubber duck is a children's toy. A child needs to have things explained simply and clearly, yet in a correct manner. And you must be prepared for (sometimes shockingly) logic questions about why and how. Pretending that your rubber duck is that oh, so logic kid asking 'why' is a great help. Letting them materialize as an audience, and forcing that simple and clear explanation into a kid's presentation is mostly a way of 'formalizing' it, but for me, it has great value. This is an excellent way to force yourself to really get a thorough basic understanding, extract the fundamental ideas in a simple way, making sure that all you say (while impersonating one of the "young scientists") is correct, even if in a simple form. And the question part pinpoints what you have not yet mastered: I write down, as question from the audience, all those nasty 'sorry, I do not have a good answer to that', and then keep up my search for information on the field so that I can provide and answer. I rewrite 'lectures' all the time: If I manage to express my newly acquired understanding in simple terms, it goes into the basic presentation, but to keep the presentation at the simple level, some advanced parts must be kept as question/answer. It it definitely a goal to get as much as possible into such simple terms that they can be included in the basic presentation. This is a great way of learning, in a way that ensures that you really understand the problem completely, that you know how to bring your understanding
I've never tried explaining it to a (possibly) inanimate object. I like it. I have had real success uncovering problems by attempting to explain the problem to a friend who is not close to the issue. That can definitely work. I'll try my next problem on my poodle. On the topic of lecturing students, and getting good questions. I worked in aerospace, and often went to schools to talk to kids. Once I was talking to a group of 9 and 10 year old kids about rockets. The class smart a_s, asked me the best question. He thought he had me. "If fire is supposed to require air to burn, how can rockets burn in space?" Great question. Of course, we know they cary the oxidizer, but that was kid brains at their best. I gave him one of my models to encourage more of that kind of thinking.
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Brilliant! :-D
Software Zen:
delete this;My own dog is a sighthound cross (hence she's a lurcher). Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky. So low boredom threshold, lots of speed and lots of stamina. Not a handful at all!
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I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
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My own dog is a sighthound cross (hence she's a lurcher). Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky. So low boredom threshold, lots of speed and lots of stamina. Not a handful at all!
Alister Morton wrote:
Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky.
That would make her a great polar bear herder! :-D
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Alister Morton wrote:
Her dad was Border collie x Whippet, her mum was a husky.
That would make her a great polar bear herder! :-D
Software Zen:
delete this;Definitely has the herding instinct of the collie, most of the prey drive of the whippet and the bossiness, digging and vocalising of the husky. Never a dull moment with our Truffle.
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Definitely has the herding instinct of the collie, most of the prey drive of the whippet and the bossiness, digging and vocalising of the husky. Never a dull moment with our Truffle.
Alister Morton wrote:
Truffle
I love the name :-D. My greyhound is 'Bacchus', named for the Greek/Roman god of wine and revelry. My wife loves mythology and picked the name even before we met the dog. The couple who was fostering him told us he didn't bark, he just whined when he wanted something. Yes. He's the god of, er, whine. :rolleyes:
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I’m a 60 year old coder. I’ve been doing it since I was 20. I always knew I loved it, but I just realized I truly do it for the get-up-and-walk-around moment. That’s the moment when you fix a sneaky bug, or complete a demanding or tricky task/algorithm/approach. It’s so satisfying, that you can’t simply move on to the next thing. You have to get up and walk around to bask in the satisfaction. I’m chasing a get up and walk around worthy bug in a bit of embedded C++ at the moment. It’s a timer fringe case, or a variable the should be volatile, and it’s not. I’ll get it, and I’ll certainly need to get-up-and-walk-around once it’s dead. Has anyone else recognized the need to get-up-and-walk-around after a truly satisfying coding moment? Do you have other victory rituals?
I usually found that the get-up-and-walk-around time was during the analysis period. Get the algorithm and data in my head, then go for a walk and let it roll around in there. What am I overlooking? What assumptions have I made that need to be challenged? etc, etc. Then I had a plan of attack, and got into the debug work.
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Alister Morton wrote:
Truffle
I love the name :-D. My greyhound is 'Bacchus', named for the Greek/Roman god of wine and revelry. My wife loves mythology and picked the name even before we met the dog. The couple who was fostering him told us he didn't bark, he just whined when he wanted something. Yes. He's the god of, er, whine. :rolleyes:
Software Zen:
delete this;Haha :-D Truffle is so named because of her colour mix - mainly white with grey and almost black splodges but some red too - she's a mix of red and blue merle.