Writer's block

[developer at tsangaris.com]

>Just thought I'd share that with you. Writing software is hard. It's like
>writing books that need to function.
>
>Anyone else have this problem? What do you do to get around it?

Oooh... I love easy questions! :-)  I struggle with this constantly.  Like one poster wrote, if your heart seems into it (it's something you really want to write) the code seems to end up in a better, cleaner condition, while also "coming out" with less problems.

Much of my coding of late, though, is not necessarily the end of the rainbow for me, so frequently I get those periods where I have stared at my code with my brain running circles around completely unrelated things.

And I have found a way out of it (a method which does include the hog-tying and dragging of my brain back to what it's supposed to be doing).

I use diagrams and lists constantly.  Even if my documentation / design already incorporates these elements, I always take a pen and paper and write down the actual steps that I need to accomplish over the next 10/30/120 minutes (depending on the size of your block).  This includes any diagrams I need to draw in order to work around a problem.

Once I do that (takes me 5 - 10 minutes), I find that I am able get around any block that I have.

-John

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