From: Ken Tilton
Subject: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <88xsh.82$yS1.74@newsfe11.lga>
btw, having recently fought thru yet again what I once called the 
immersion problem and then started liking your cache-reload metaphor, I 
find myself needing something different than reloading the cache. It is 
more of an acclimatization thing, or like going on vacation but not 
really being on vacation until 3-4 days in. It is not that it takes a 
certain amount of time to relearn my code (I think) it is that it takes 
a certain amount of time before I forget there is anything in life 
/besides/ the code. Anyway....

Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian 
thing. When I come to a sticky problem, I can be incapacitated for days, 
find all sorts of excuses to do all sorts of things other than tackle 
the problem. Once I dig in things go as quickly as I knew they would, 
but even knowing the phenomenon I find I still refuse jumps.

This is a burn-out thing, btw. In the past hard problems just made me 
downshift and get on the throttle.

Got anything on this one?

ken

-- 
The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
   -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty

From: ········@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <1169342306.343984.149920@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Ken Tilton wrote:
> btw, having recently fought thru yet again what I once called the
> immersion problem and then started liking your cache-reload metaphor, I
> find myself needing something different than reloading the cache. It is
> more of an acclimatization thing, or like going on vacation but not
> really being on vacation until 3-4 days in. It is not that it takes a
> certain amount of time to relearn my code (I think) it is that it takes
> a certain amount of time before I forget there is anything in life
> /besides/ the code. Anyway....
>
> Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian
> thing. When I come to a sticky problem, I can be incapacitated for days,
> find all sorts of excuses to do all sorts of things other than tackle
> the problem. Once I dig in things go as quickly as I knew they would,
> but even knowing the phenomenon I find I still refuse jumps.
>
> This is a burn-out thing, btw. In the past hard problems just made me
> downshift and get on the throttle.
>
> Got anything on this one?

Take thou this vial, being then in front of thy computer, and this
distilling liquor drink thou off.

When presently through all thy veins shall run a cold and drowsy
humour, for no pulse shall keep his native progress.

And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death thou shalt continue two
and forty hours, and then awake as from a pleasant sleep. Now, when
your boss in the morning comes to rouse thee from thy computer, there
art thou dead. Then, as the manner of your company is, in thy best
robes uncover'd on the bier thou shalt be borne to that same ancient
vault where all the kindred of the lispers lie.

Wait... what were you asking?

Nick




>
> ken
>
> --
> The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
>    -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: Ken Tilton
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <9wzsh.18$sN3.10@newsfe10.lga>
········@gmail.com wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
> 
>>btw, having recently fought thru yet again what I once called the
>>immersion problem and then started liking your cache-reload metaphor, I
>>find myself needing something different than reloading the cache. It is
>>more of an acclimatization thing, or like going on vacation but not
>>really being on vacation until 3-4 days in. It is not that it takes a
>>certain amount of time to relearn my code (I think) it is that it takes
>>a certain amount of time before I forget there is anything in life
>>/besides/ the code. Anyway....
>>
>>Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian
>>thing. When I come to a sticky problem, I can be incapacitated for days,
>>find all sorts of excuses to do all sorts of things other than tackle
>>the problem. Once I dig in things go as quickly as I knew they would,
>>but even knowing the phenomenon I find I still refuse jumps.
>>
>>This is a burn-out thing, btw. In the past hard problems just made me
>>downshift and get on the throttle.
>>
>>Got anything on this one?
> 
> 
> Take thou this vial, being then in front of thy computer, and this
> distilling liquor drink thou off.

Tried that, kinda diminished the LOC count, had to lay off. But man am I 
gonna get hammered when this thing is done...

> 
> When presently through all thy veins shall run a cold and drowsy
> humour, for no pulse shall keep his native progress.

I have learned to power nap when that happens. Little point sitting in 
the chair with my eyes closed hoping the solution will come to me. Tho I 
am doing that now.

> 
> And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death thou shalt continue two
> and forty hours, and then awake as from a pleasant sleep. Now, when
> your boss in the morning comes to rouse thee from thy computer, there
> art thou dead. Then, as the manner of your company is, in thy best
> robes uncover'd on the bier thou shalt be borne to that same ancient
> vault where all the kindred of the lispers lie.

Bury me not midst the yobbos!

> 
> Wait... what were you asking?

A different metaphor than a horse refusing a jump for when I have a hard 
problem and pretty much go down tools without really meaning to.

Nice passage, tho. Yoda to Luke in Return of the Jedi, yes?

kzo


-- 
The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
   -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: ········@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <1169344168.296375.233960@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
> A different metaphor than a horse refusing a jump for when I have a hard
> problem and pretty much go down tools without really meaning to.
>
> Nice passage, tho. Yoda to Luke in Return of the Jedi, yes?
>

Emperor Strikes Back.

Personally I find I can do little to no thinking while sitting in front
of a computer. Problem solving for me takes place at an empty desk with
a box of printer paper and a mechanical pencil.

Have you tried getting up early in the morning and not letting yourself
check your email or cll untill you've made a few hours of signifigant
headway into the problem?

Nick


> kzo
>
>
> --
> The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
>    -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: Ken Tilton
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <q%Ash.222$yS1.58@newsfe11.lga>
········@gmail.com wrote:
>>A different metaphor than a horse refusing a jump for when I have a hard
>>problem and pretty much go down tools without really meaning to.
>>
>>Nice passage, tho. Yoda to Luke in Return of the Jedi, yes?
>>
> 
> 
> Emperor Strikes Back.

I was close!

> 
> Personally I find I can do little to no thinking while sitting in front
> of a computer. Problem solving for me takes place at an empty desk with
> a box of printer paper and a mechanical pencil.
> 
> Have you tried getting up early in the morning ..

That's when I go to bed.

>...and not letting yourself
> check your email or cll 

...or CNN or NYTimes or Fark or the weather... symptom, not problem. I 
can do all those while being insanely productive. But...

> untill you've made a few hours of signifigant
> headway into the problem?

Thanks for the thought! Now that I have identified the pattern I don't 
let it play out too long. And I have a show coming up. Nothin like a 
deadline. The head of Monster said the annual NES may be a big expense 
but they would not be where they are without the deadline each year. In 
fact, I was going to blow off the show until I realized the same thing.

kt

-- 
The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
   -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: Rob Warnock
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <2eOdnZcpIZbVwC7YnZ2dnUVZ_vShnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Ken Tilton  <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian 
| thing. When I come to a sticky problem, I can be incapacitated for days, 
| find all sorts of excuses to do all sorts of things other than tackle 
| the problem. Once I dig in things go as quickly as I knew they would, 
| but even knowing the phenomenon I find I still refuse jumps.
| 
| This is a burn-out thing, btw. In the past hard problems just made me 
| downshift and get on the throttle.
| 
| Got anything on this one?
+---------------

Dunno, maybe...

First, from your description, it sounds to me like you're not so
much "balking at a jump" per se [though if you keep describing it
that way to yourself you might create a self-fulfilling prophecy]
as "seeing too much" and becoming overwhelmed by the vision. This
happens to me quite often as I get into a problem: I start exploring
the issues/contraints/available-degrees-of-freedom/whatever, and
the search tree of possible avenues starts to explode, and *whammo!*,
pretty soon the whole thing has assumed monstrous proportions and
I can't do *anything* since it seems that I'd have to do *everything*
all at once. "Overwhelmed by seeing too much" is one way to put it;
"lost in the fog of possibilities" is another.

In any event, when that happens the approach that seems to work
for me is to persistently but gently keep "leaning into it",
while having patience in the knowledge that this is *not* going
to get done all at once, or even today, or maybe even this week.
In words we have both heard elsewhere before, "take the middle way,
not too tight, not too loose". Neither beat yourself over the
head for not being able to push the entire thingy to completion
in one Herculean push of hacker energy (which probably *has* worked
for you, as it has for me, so many times in the past but now doesn't
work any more as the problems have gotten a whole lot bigger [and
as we've gotten older!]) nor slack off completely.

Said another way, the trick is to relax, really relax, *A LOT*,
yet while not giving up on the ultimate goal even for an instant.

I find that if I do this, just nibble away at it in small bits,
over & over, *not* giving in to the temptation of feeling guilty
about not trying for "one big push" [which I already known won't work]
*nor* getting lost 100% with procrastination distractions [though
procrastinating up to 95% often *does* happen!], if I can just
bring my mind back to the problem for even a little bit each
time I have an opportunity to, over & over, maybe making little
notes on yellow stickies or in "~/NOTES/NOTE.whatever" files, then,
more often than not, after a while of this [it may be hours, days,
or weeks] something suddenly starts to crystalize out of the fog.
"Hmmm... If I pick this choice, that means I *don't* need that one.
If I use this little state machine here, then all that other stuff
can get called by the edge transitions." Whatever. If you're into
quantum physics analogies you might say it's a collapse of the
wave function of the superposition of all of the possible solutions
(and non-solutions!) of the problem into the one solution you
*are* going to use. And then suddenly, almost magically it seems,
after *way* too long of (apparently) "producing nothing", the code
starts to flow, and I discover I'm "over the hump" and it's all
downhill from there.  Note: *NOT* "all done" -- there may be
"miles & miles" to go still before that -- but "over the hump".
It's not *A!* *BIG!* *PROBLEM!* any more, it's just a problem,
or maybe even "just a bunch of boring work" left to crank out.

Hope that helps...


-Rob

p.s. The one problem with this method is that that *looonnng*
period of apparently producing nothing tends to scare managers,
especially since after all the radio & T.V. investment ads everyone
now knows that "past performance is no guarantee of future return".

-----
Rob Warnock			<····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607
From: Ken Tilton
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <g3Nsh.15$Nx.3@newsfe10.lga>
Rob Warnock wrote:
> Ken Tilton  <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian 
> | thing. When I come to a sticky problem, I can be incapacitated for days, 
> | find all sorts of excuses to do all sorts of things other than tackle 
> | the problem. Once I dig in things go as quickly as I knew they would, 
> | but even knowing the phenomenon I find I still refuse jumps.
> | 
> | This is a burn-out thing, btw. In the past hard problems just made me 
> | downshift and get on the throttle.
> | 
> | Got anything on this one?
> +---------------
> 
> Dunno, maybe...
> 
> First, from your description, it sounds to me like you're not so
> much "balking at a jump" per se [though if you keep describing it
> that way to yourself you might create a self-fulfilling prophecy]
> as "seeing too much" and becoming overwhelmed by the vision.

Excellent. But that is just a category of "hard", any member of which 
can halt digging. Multiple easy options can definitely constitute an 
obstacle greater than the challenge presented by any one of the options.

I might name that category K3 after the day I got stuck at some 
innocuous point on a rock climb called Kascading Krystal Kaleidoscope, 
because there were two perfectly even ways to proceed, each with a small 
problem, but each on the face of it seeming dead easy, so each could 
tempt me away from the other as being easier, yet once settled on seem 
dicey opening the door to the other. I finally made one of the moves and 
when my partner joined me on the ledge ten minutes later he demanded to 
know WTF I had been doing, it was easy. He said he had never seen me 
like that, and in fact /while/ I was stuck I noticed the phenomenon.

This is close to "hunting", as in automatic transmissions on an upgrade 
and autofocus lenses faced with fuzzy scenes, but different I think, 
because in both cases the devices are actually undertaking one option 
and then abandoning it for the other. (I used to do that with software.) 
but the K3 thing is about not being able to get started.


> This
> happens to me quite often as I get into a problem: I start exploring
> the issues/contraints/available-degrees-of-freedom/whatever, and
> the search tree of possible avenues starts to explode, and *whammo!*,
> pretty soon the whole thing has assumed monstrous proportions and
> I can't do *anything* since it seems that I'd have to do *everything*
> all at once. "Overwhelmed by seeing too much" is one way to put it;
> "lost in the fog of possibilities" is another.

I have to use a technique someone later told me was called "free 
writing" when that happens. I just did it this time, typing right
into one of the source files, about 500 words (unfortunately already 
deleted). But it is better to write on paper so I have time to think 
because writing is slower (and typing makes me think since I touch 
type). I just start "talking" to myself on paper about the 
possibilities, describing each in more detail than happens when I just 
lean back and look at the ceiling. There is something about the process 
that takes "me" away from it so I can think, and I use it for any hard 
decision, not just programming.


> 
> In any event, when that happens the approach that seems to work
> for me is to persistently but gently keep "leaning into it",

Ah, we have the same metaphor there.

> while having patience in the knowledge that this is *not* going
> to get done all at once, or even today, or maybe even this week.
> In words we have both heard elsewhere before, "take the middle way,
> not too tight, not too loose". Neither beat yourself over the
> head for not being able to push the entire thingy to completion
> in one Herculean push of hacker energy (which probably *has* worked
> for you, as it has for me, so many times in the past but now doesn't
> work any more as the problems have gotten a whole lot bigger [and
> as we've gotten older!]) nor slack off completely.

Exactly. What used to take two hours of damn-the-torpedos fresh coding 
and six hours of refining now takes four days of puttering around the 
house, email, CNN, and c.l.l. The good news is...
> 
> Said another way, the trick is to relax, really relax, *A LOT*,
> yet while not giving up on the ultimate goal even for an instant.
> 
> I find that if I do this, just nibble away at it in small bits,
> over & over, *not* giving in to the temptation of feeling guilty
> about not trying for "one big push" [which I already known won't work]
> *nor* getting lost 100% with procrastination distractions [though
> procrastinating up to 95% often *does* happen!], if I can just
> bring my mind back to the problem for even a little bit each
> time I have an opportunity to, over & over, maybe making little
> notes on yellow stickies or in "~/NOTES/NOTE.whatever" files, then,
> more often than not, after a while of this [it may be hours, days,
> or weeks] something suddenly starts to crystalize out of the fog.
> "Hmmm... If I pick this choice, that means I *don't* need that one.
> If I use this little state machine here, then all that other stuff
> can get called by the edge transitions." Whatever. If you're into
> quantum physics analogies you might say it's a collapse of the
> wave function of the superposition of all of the possible solutions
> (and non-solutions!) of the problem into the one solution you
> *are* going to use. And then suddenly, almost magically it seems,
> after *way* too long of (apparently) "producing nothing", the code
> starts to flow, and I discover I'm "over the hump" and it's all
> downhill from there.  Note: *NOT* "all done" -- there may be
> "miles & miles" to go still before that -- but "over the hump".
> It's not *A!* *BIG!* *PROBLEM!* any more, it's just a problem,
> or maybe even "just a bunch of boring work" left to crank out.

...often I then solve the problem in fifteen minutes like Feynman 
switching the vacuum tubes on the radio after staring at it for a good 
long while, or at worst a few hours of code that Just Works and better 
than I had hoped. I like to kid myself that this is wisdom at work, but 
I am pretty sure it is burnout.

> 
> Hope that helps...
> 
> 
> -Rob
> 
> p.s. The one problem with this method is that that *looonnng*
> period of apparently producing nothing tends to scare managers,

Two fixes: (a) be my own manager (b) periodically send them the free 
writing, scares the crap out of them.

But I've twice had consulting clients call me in to fire me for not 
having produced anything on a project and had the insane pleasure of 
telling them I just finished it so where's my damn going-away lunch? -- 
yeah, management can def get in the way of this process.

Next metaphor: coding encounters of the third kind? This is a first for 
me: the code is starting to write itself. Better put, the design is 
starting to architect itself, I am still writing the code of course. I 
am thinking of the actual encounter with the aliens, the point at which 
the computer takes over in the musical conversation after initial 
guidance from its programmers.

I have a clear sense of not having written this code. I have a pretty 
good memory, and I am looking now at mechanisms and frameworks I never 
intended or conceived. I have long maintained that a problem determines 
its own unique solution (there is exactly one way to skin /that/ cat), 
so maybe I have simply grown weary enough of coding that I no longer get 
in the problems way. tao te ching had a lot on that, too.

kt


-- 
The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
   -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: Rob Warnock
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <_9KdnTzC15E_HSnYnZ2dnUVZ_rWnnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Ken Tilton  <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Rob Warnock wrote:
| ...[trimmed]...
| 
| I might name that category K3 after the day I got stuck at some 
| innocuous point on a rock climb called Kascading Krystal Kaleidoscope, 
| because there were two perfectly even ways to proceed, each with a small 
| problem, but each on the face of it seeming dead easy, so each could 
| tempt me away from the other as being easier, yet once settled on seem 
| dicey opening the door to the other. I finally made one of the moves and 
| when my partner joined me on the ledge ten minutes later he demanded to 
| know WTF I had been doing, it was easy. He said he had never seen me 
| like that, and in fact /while/ I was stuck I noticed the phenomenon.
| 
| This is close to "hunting", as in automatic transmissions on an upgrade 
| and autofocus lenses faced with fuzzy scenes, but different I think...
+---------------

Probably not "hunting" per se [which is closer to the phenomenon of
"Pilot-Induced Oscillations" (PIOs) which can cause "porpoising", e.g.,
<http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20001207X03069&ntsbno=ATL95LA064&akey=1>,
especially when landing tail-wheel planes], but more like the classic
"approach-approach conflict", e.g., the dog starving between two bowls
of food.

+---------------
| Next metaphor: coding encounters of the third kind? This is a first for 
| me: the code is starting to write itself. Better put, the design is 
| starting to architect itself, I am still writing the code of course. I 
| am thinking of the actual encounter with the aliens, the point at which 
| the computer takes over in the musical conversation after initial 
| guidance from its programmers.
| 
| I have a clear sense of not having written this code. I have a pretty 
| good memory, and I am looking now at mechanisms and frameworks I never 
| intended or conceived. 
+---------------

Isn't this called "being in the zone"? It's said to happen to
athletes all the time.


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock			<····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607
From: Ken Tilton
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <kn2th.200$Oh7.175@newsfe09.lga>
Rob Warnock wrote:
> Ken Tilton  <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> +---------------
> | Next metaphor: coding encounters of the third kind? This is a first for 
> | me: the code is starting to write itself. Better put, the design is 
> | starting to architect itself, I am still writing the code of course. I 
> | am thinking of the actual encounter with the aliens, the point at which 
> | the computer takes over in the musical conversation after initial 
> | guidance from its programmers.
> | 
> | I have a clear sense of not having written this code. I have a pretty 
> | good memory, and I am looking now at mechanisms and frameworks I never 
> | intended or conceived. 
> +---------------
> 
> Isn't this called "being in the zone"? It's said to happen to
> athletes all the time.

No, this has a more uninvolved feel. There is big abstraction gap -- I 
am laying bricks, look up and see a townhouse. I think this might be the 
big argument for macros. Step A: the problem I am working on dictates 
this elaborate but elegant architecture. That is always the case. Then I 
start hacking away at coding up a solution. The usual. But using macros 
and the DSL thing to achieve cleaner and cleaner source somehow draws us 
into the right architecture. I guess there is nothing new about simpler 
being better.

kt


-- 
The Dalai Lama gets the same crap all the time.
   -- Kenny Tilton on c.l.l when accused of immodesty
From: Giorgos Keramidas
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87wt3etxtp.fsf@kobe.laptop>
On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:48:04 -0500, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> But using macros and the DSL thing to achieve cleaner and cleaner
> source somehow draws us into the right architecture. I guess there is
> nothing new about simpler being better.

Something like sort of similar happened to me today.  I was showing a
simplification of a C implementation of macros to a colleague, when he
exclaimed "You are not writing in Lisp now, are you?".

My reply was "No, because if I was, all this would be simpler.
Something like a single macro call, resembling:

  (loop for item in some-list
    do ...)

and not this ad-hoc mess of preprocessor string expansions.  But let's
move on now, shall we?"

Simpler is indeed better :)
From: Kaz Kylheku
Subject: Re: Rob, watcha got on this one?
Date: 
Message-ID: <1169526660.037081.168560@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>
Ken Tilton wrote:
> Next phenomenon. I call it "refusing the jump", as in the equestrian
> thing.

Just be sure it's not actually a case of the "refusing to drink"
assinine thing. :)