9 replies to this topic

[totonex]

Hey everyone, been posting here and there (mostly questions...) around this forum, and there's this thing i would like to share with you.

First of all, context: I'm a college Computers & IT student, just finished first year, and i'm in summer holiday right now, until it starts back in autumn.

Time-wastefulness notwithstanding, I've always had a not-so-bad time coding, understanding new concepts (though it took me 4 painful high-school years to understand pointers in C/C++...yeeeah.). This college year, before school started, I was so fascinated with programming concepts, new paradigms (Lisp and such...told every good coder i what knew about Lisp, they think i'm crazy BUT I'M NOT!!! MWHAHAHAHAHA !!!), and found pleasure in doing mundane programming tasks, like writing small accounting applications in C# (event-driven RAD stuff). So i really thought i started understanding the nuts and bolts around programming.
So i've done quite a few small projects, like an RPN Calculator/parser in PHP, various apps in C#, played around Lisp, read a bunch of articles here and there, blablabla). So i could add a few things to my resume, i guess.

But something's wrong since holiday started...(even though most of my time i'm at the computer)...

I CAN'T CODE ANYMORE !!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Ok, overstatement.

I can code, but i have such a huge lack of focus, patience, and such a huge lack of everything, i'm like at 10% efficiency. It's like a code-nervous breakdown. My mind can't think abstractly anymore, i have trouble doing anything code-related. I fear i couldn't even do a lousy Windows Forms Application anymore. Do you get this sometimes?
I've been 'working' on a real-time chat site for some weeks now, and i'm going so horribly slow, i question whether or not i'm up to it anymore. It took me about an hour and a half to do 2 lousy mysql/php queries today, and do some string operations. (yeaah...15 lines of code today, cheers !).
I basically wrote about 200 lines of code in a couple weeks.

Do you get this sometimes ? How does it affect your productivity?

[jwxie518]

I am in the same boat. You just have to overcome it.

Take it slowly.

[Roger]

Sounds like "writer's block"... try to get away for a bit and come back to it later. Don't think about your program while you're away. When you come back, just start with a clear mind, write down what you're trying to do, and layout a plan. Programming is like riding a bike, once you know it, it's hard to just lose it.

[WingedPanther]

It happens sometimes, especially if you don't have a project you're excited about. If it's any comfort, I think Lisp is a pretty cool language :)

[totonex]

Ok, so i'm not the only one with code-alitis, or code flu or whatever, everyone gets afflicted now and then.
@WingedPanther: You kidding? Lisp is probably the best thing since sliced bread, in the field of programming languages! :D

[WingedPanther]

I like lisp, but I may start looking into clojure. I suspect it might be the best use of JRE out there :)

[Sky]

Are you serious? Is Lisp cool? I did not know that! Thanks.

[WingedPanther]

Of course it is. There's nothing like 8 closing parenthesis together for a chunk of code :) I actually do like it.

[totonex]

It's getting off-topic, but it's not about the parentheses, it's about homoiconicity and code as data.

[isuru]

Same here! When I try to focus on coding I always ended up watching movie or tv show online.... Sometimes I unplug my router but it is not helpful either... Now I here in this forum... but I should work on my project... I can't keep on coding....