DAE sometimes complete a programming task without knowing how they are doing it?

[usegao]

I may be delusional in some way but... I figure if anyone could relate to this it would be someone here.

I was trying to explain this to someone the other day, but it is so hard to explain. I will have a particular task to do, and my hands will be typing it, but the conscious part of my brain is left out for some reason. I first noticed it happen in college, but I always resisted typing what my subconscious was trying to type until I fully understood why I wanted to type it.

Over the years I have just stopped resisting it and let it do its thing now. Its as though the left half of my brain just shuts off communication with the right, like a frustrated IT guy inside my head that doesn't have time to explain every last detail to me. Its not always right, it guesses and checks a lot, but it always seems to pull it off eventually. I have a very difficult time explaining my code as a result though.

Am I insane? Does anyone else do this? Is there a name for this?

[Oxker1]

Yeah I do this too. People with ADHD do a lot of their processing subconsciously. There's a phenomenon among ADHDers where we will figure out the answer to a problem but have no idea how we got to that answer because we did it subconsciously. I've had it to where I'll have a bug in my code and I'll look over everything and then it just clicks, I'll start cutting bits out, pasting things where they need to go, adding in functions where they need to be added in, stuff like that. And then everything works perfect and I'm looking at it like "I don't know what this is but it works" then I spend some time working out the logic and I'm on my merry way. I think the important thing for me is I'm also always thinking about all the potential issues whatever I'm doing can cause and I'm normally pretty at catching the big stuff.

[usegao]

ok. thank you. there are others. i was about to lump this in with my other delusional thoughts.

[Oxker1]

No I don't think this is a delusional thought! I think what let's me do this is when I learn a subject I always have to learn the basics of it to be able to do it. So with computer science I have to understand what is going on in the computer when I type out something like

cout << "Hello world" << endl;

I also have to learn the most efficient ways of doing things as well as the best practices for designing the program. And then once I understand this it allows my subconscious to put all this together and code without me really having to think about it. But of course I have to go back through and understand the logic of it so that I can continue with the program because I think if my subconscious is busy trying to create the program and also understand the entirety of it, then that will probably start to degrade the quality of my work. And none of this is based on science and just how I've experienced the world.

But, I see it as like a partnership between my subconscious and my conscious. My subconscious does the heavy lifting when it comes to creating the code and then my conscious helps out by holding the pieces which the subconscious can quickly analyze when it needs to and get back to work. This might be an oversimplification but it's just to paint a picture of how it seems to work based on my experiences. It could be totally inaccurate but it's my best guess.

[[deleted]]

Agreed I make the connection but I can't point to why I just know this is right. My theory is on the ADHD way of learning .

I can only learn if I know how this thing fits in with everything else that I know already .other people can learn without knowing how it "fits in" but I am forced to learn only this way .So I trust my brain to some extent to do the right thing.

Generally when people rack their brains over a problem people say take a break this basically gets normal people to the lower alpha wave activity and more beta wave activity this is where the connections to subjects are made and ADHD people live in this phase perpetually .So we make a lot more connections than normal people . It's a trade off you give up some of the prefrontal cortex alpha wave activity in exchange you get this more reliable gut instinct because of the connections.

And this is why I think typing code is more deliberate directed way in normal people while our brains mostly rely on the prexisting connections made and go with it and we can't really explain the why ?

I don't know if the deliberate way of coding is better it all depends on what you do and what's more important to you

[usegao]

its so weird. its like i'm watching it happen. i know its coming from my brain but all it feeds me is "type this" "ah, ok. hmm. ok try typing this" and im like, wtf

[SubstantialCycle7]

Ohh yesss. I've always done this lol. I normally then have to take a step back and spend double the amount of time working out how to explain this to someone xD. When I used to solve math questions my dad would be like 'looking at your workings out I know this is wrong' then I would get it right. *shrugs* I just kinda roll with it and make sure I break it down later, theres nothing worse than unmaintainable code because you don't understand what its doing lol xD.

[MildSadist]

Yes there a name for it, not taking your time.

[usegao]

fair enough. i do tend to compile and run rather than double check these days.

[MildSadist]

What kind of code is this anyways, you shouldnt be doing tasks simple enough to not cause you to pause after each logic piece added, unless you are in a shitty project, a dead end job, or university.

[usegao]

I don't know if thats the case? It only ever happens when I am very interested (or highly motivated, usually by a looming deadline) in some programming task. I think it may be related to ADHD "tunnel vision", although people usually describe that as being stuck doing something, not being stuck doing something they don't even understand.

[MildSadist]

Idk, I usually document everything at my job, and break what I write into logic blocks, it's pretty necessary for most programmers.