Right now, I'm sitting at my desk staring at an error - it doesn't make sense whats going on or why this error occurred. If you're working with a language that has a huge cormmunitity, it's likely that you can just google what problem you've come across. For me that's not really the case, I work with ColdFusion. Of course, after a while - if I can't solve the error I will reach out to my coworkers for help, but I'm trying to do that as a last resort now.
Out of habit, I reach for my phone. Check twitter, facebook, instagram.. or even writing this post. Most of the time I don't really realize I'm doing it. I was talking to a colleague recently who mentioned that I spend a lot of time on phone, and I was pretty surprised. Out of this discussion, I became more aware that grabbing for my phone is something I do what I get stuck or even uncomfortable with a ticket. I use it for a distraction or outlet even to get my mind off what I'm struggling with.
Since becoming aware of my constant phone use I've made an effort to keep my phone in my bag. But now I still need an outlet to let that feeling of being stuck pass.
What is the right approach for issues like this? Obviously we all get stuck, from junior to senior dev - we won't automagically know the answers or always how to source them. So, how do you handle these types of situations?
Top comments (25)
Plenty of amazing suggestions and examples in these comments.
I leave my overall (not so different) approach too, never knows :)
TL;DR
It is personal, but I do think that for me it is necessary a radical "cut" from the issue. I find it is counterproductive to check social, etc. At a certain point, I take the screen (pixels, fonts, IDE/editor, sites, etc) out of the equation.
So...
A) resulting from a search with that way of thinkingB) exploring an error in a different way, etcscans the issue from different points of viewAandBtabs, often I spot some detail that brings me on the right pathThis process helps me a lot.
It is not always viable if being in a hurry: can help in a few minutes, hours, or not. A few weeks ago I was stuck (luckily enough, with a personal project) and a solution arose after three days ;)
Points I take in account:
Thank you for your perspective Max! I appreciate you going through that. Very thorough, will have to try and adapt some of your practices.
Paraphrasing A.E., if I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem (mostly indirectly) and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.
Take care, Kayley :)
Taking a break or looking for a distraction to focus on something isn't the worst thing. It's usually what I do if I'm in that rut of just not being able to figure something out, then when I come back to it (a nights sleep is usually best!) I tend to have that "oh, duh..." moment.
I totally agree, though I do feel like I've become reliant on looking for some sort of distraction and my go to is my phone/social media. I can see how this would look to my coworkers if they're all heads down, I assume it looks like I'm not doing work? I think maybe I just need to find a different type of distraction, which will definitely be easier in the summer when I can take a walk around the building etc.
Depends on the culture of the place you work I suppose. Certainly where I am you’ll see people on all sorts when they’re thinking things through or taking a break. At the end of the day the way I look at it is everyone is a professional so I’ll treat them as such and not police what they’re doing.
That's very true and a very good point, perhaps I'm more cautious because I'm still a new employee.
I can totally relate to this. And I work remotely which makes it even more difficult, since there is no accountability.
When get stuck, I try to write things on paper. Thought process is like:
And sometimes just take a walk and think about it.
This is super insightful Zubair! I'm definitely going to steal this from you, I think there's something special about writing things down, somehow changes the perspective of the problem.
Do you have an example of what this looks like by chance?
I can't wait until the weather here get's warmer! Talking walks will definitely be my goto for when I get stuck.
I work with PHP and JavaScript. Both are scripting languages and are interpreted as one line of code after the other.
So I just start at the beginning and then go on logging/dumping things.
Thought process example:
I hope this helps :)
Definitely! Thank you for showing me how you work through a scenario like that!
Make Google your best friend. 😊
That's definitely a great option for those working in popular languages! For someone like me who's working in ColdFusion there's not really much out there.. Anytime you google something the solution is from 2012 and no longer viable.
Ok. I don’t know what that even is. Good luck.
Haha, 6 months ago I didn't either. If you want to check it out Learn CF in a Week for a quick run down on the language.
NO! Not another Mark-up Language (CFML). I'm still trying to keep track of all the others in my head. 😊
Totally feel that! I wouldn't recommend going near it anyways ;)
I call these situations “question queues”. You can be stuck in the queue if there’s nobody to help. You can even distract yourself from joining the queue in the first place.
Pair and mob programming were invented to address this very issue. 🙂
Good point! I do love pair programming, I really believe I benefit and learn quite a lot from it.
Rubber duck debugging works surprisingly well. Before going to your coworkers make a plan how you will explain to them that the error makes no sense and show that you tried all possible solutions.
It's likely that you will stumble on a solution while doing this. If you don't, well at least you will have a plan how to explain the problem to your coworkers.
I'm definitely trying to implement this more before I ask for help.. Think about what I'm stuck on, and is there another resource/way I can solve the problem I'm facing. This approach has certainly cut down on how much I'm asking for help for sure.
ColdFusion can be a pain to work with, especially in old and messy codebases (which most ColdFusion codebases probably are). My advice is to stick close to the stack trace and put in dumps/aborts for variables/scopes at those points and load up the page to see what you are working with. It takes a certain type of stubbornness or tenacity to debug some ColdFusion issues, just keep at it and it will get easier over time.
As long as you have put in the effort and provide background information or what you have tried, you should be okay to reach out to your team. I think seeking out information on how they would troubleshoot the issue is valuable. As a senior member on my team, it is tempting to give out answers to help another developer instead of sharing my methods of getting to those answers which won't help the team grow. The other developer will solve their issue, but they may not have learned anything. I would keep that in mind when reaching out to not just ask about the solution to your problem, but seek out guidance on how they would troubleshoot it.
I feel you on wanting a distraction when something is painful to do, I am the same way. It might just be working in ColdFusion that causes that! 😄 Feel free to reach out if you need any ColdFusion help or need to vent about that language.
I ended up doing that after lunch! I don't want it to be my only option though, I need to be able to figure out things on my own.. What if next time I'm at home or no one is at the office?
A coffee can maybe help.
Ohh, super good suggestion! I need to bring in some more caffeine free tea for those afternoon struggles!