My personal favourite is to break from staring after 30 mins, exclaim, “Hang on, we’re going about this completely back to front!” then spend the next hour deriving from first principles, only to arrive back at the original problem, but now with slightly different notation. At which point I realise that all I’ve done is get myself back to my starting point… Then it’s back to the staring.
A true software developer will also raise their hands in celebration when they finally solve a problem that’s been plaguing them.
Even if you’re working from home, alone.
Whenever I'm asked for help by IT colleagues, I never say I'll help solve an issue. I just say "Sure, I'll come help stare at it for a while" - it's the most I can really promise.
My math teacher in high school always said "math is 90% looking" and if you didn't get the task directly: "look again" ... Funny part is, that actually worked for most of the class xD
After 15 minutes I switch tasks and come back to it at a later date. Do the dishes or something
True!! I love that part!!
then I have to somehow explain what seemed obvious to me for that split second where magic struck...
Programmers do that a lot? I always just start trying stuff in the command line until it works. It's in research though, so maybe different from what is typical developer stuff?
