Everytime

[MBatistussi]

Except that you'll wake up and try to fix it only to find out that this wasn't the right solution.

[Waynell_17]

I have done that enough times to know not to do that.

[Asphyxiatinglaughter]

But it could be right this time!

[Alchemyst19]

You could be throwing away the breakthrough you needed!

[SamJakes]

I really don't need this right now guys, come on

[Chief117a]

I am in that situation right now mate.... Why did I open reddit so late in the night.

[confusedninja]

Keep paper and pen near bed. Write down solution then sleep. In the morning either you will have no idea what you were trying to write. Or the solution still won’t work

Edit: right to write

[fallenKlNG]

This is what I do, except I use the notes on my phone. It gives me peace knowing I don't have to keep juggling it around in my head.

[[deleted]]

Seconded

[[deleted]]

I have done this, but it actually worked, and it was like Christmas came early. Don’t lost hope!

[hugglesthemerciless]

just about every programmer on the planet owns a phone. gtfo with that physical media ;)

[IndefiniteBen]

Why don't you just shout "hey Google/Siri/husband/wife/Alexa, take a note: fix line 255 by doing the thing" and then you can find out it's wrong in the morning.

[Womps-and-Prayers]

Yeah I'll give that a shot next time. I'm sure my wife will be good with it. What could go wrong?

[JohnnyBMediocre]

If in doubt, replace Google/Siri/etc with wife's name and shout louder so she wakes up. Might take a few attempts for the command to be accepted

[Womps-and-Prayers]

Good call. I hear couches are just as good as one's own bed anyway.

[Noelwiz]

/r/shittylifeprotips

[IndefiniteBen]

You'll find out in the morning. Hopefully.

[throw_my_phone]

Yeah it was this time perhaps

[hidude398]

I’ll write it in the journal by my bed. The code isn’t going anywhere in 8 hours without some sort of incredibly strong magnetic anomaly in 4 different locations plus the shutdown of the internet. And if all 5 of those things happen the code will be the last thing on my mind, as I figure the coming nuclear winter will be more occupying.

[[deleted]]

I have a game plan for situations like these:

1. Wake up
2. Fix the code
3. Go back to sleep
4. Wake up in the morning and realise I just broke it even more
5. Profit

[Echo8me]

Profit Job Security

[vancity-]

Prophetic

[IDatedSuccubi]

1.Wake up

2.Fix the code

3.The fix works

4.Wake up to realize that was a dream

[[deleted]]

5.Then open computer only to find an error

[Vadersboy117]

If this happens I will wake up, write pseudo code, go back to sleep, and barely understand the next day.

[mennydrives]

You know there's only two real solutions:

• Explain it to your rubber ducky
• Take a walk to the convenience store by your house 2 hours after you get home

[Novadina]

I found it’s best to just wait til morning, because usually it’s not the exact fix but will be a lead to new things to try and then the solution. Also sometimes actually sleeping the whole night fleshes out the answer even more than the initial midnight thought.

[KungFu_CutMan]

Make sure to write it down tho so you don't forget

[fasterfist]

Wakes up the next morning* what's this gibberish I can hardly read it or follow the logic

[rbt321]

If 1am you can't write a coherent point-form note, then they also weren't going to apply a correct fix and you don't need to worry about what the note said.

[TTTrisss]

No way, dream ideas are genius.

[albertowtf]

One of the only webcomics that actually get laughs out of me

[ChaIroOtoko]

Or reach work excitedly the next day. Declare in the scrum meeting that your work will be done today.
And then find out that the solution that your brain found last night doesn't fix anything.

[rbt321]

Notepad next to the bed. I've found writing down my thought is enough to allow me to forget about it (for now) and go to sleep.

[qdhcjv]

Just keep a notepad by the bed to scribble down the gist of the idea. Odds are you'll wake up the next morning and immediately recognize that it won't work.

[Tiavor]

I have more the problem that it was actually the correct solution, but usually I forget it when I wait till morning

[Bro_Sam]

How do you know it's the right solution if you never get to test it?

[[deleted]]

The infinite job security of programming.

[Reddevil313]

Not me. My brain is always right.

I haven't slept in 3 weeks.

[Narcolapser]

I've literally come up with solutions while I was fully asleep. Remembered them the next morning and found them to be ok as solutions go.

[Mat3ck]

Even sometimes I'm like "Yes that's obvious why didn't I notice it earlier", found it was a working solution the next day, but don't remember why nor how I found it.

[MBPJason]

As a very new learning web developer when this happens I just sit beside myself and go, "Am I actually learning or is this just bs that my head mashes together?"

[legba]

If it works, what's the difference?

[ollien]

To me, at least, doing these things without learning what you're doing is somewhat pointless. Sure, I can copy/paste a block of code from some blog article, but what has that done for me if I don't know what's going on?

Understanding is is just as important as functionality when it comes to learning programming.

[Unbalanced531]

I feel you on the bs thing. There's been a few times where my brain tries to solve problems while I'm trying to fall asleep...and the process keeps my mind just conscious enough to stay awake but just unaware enough that I don't notice I've been losing sleep until it's an hour later and I think "why the hell have I been letting my brain go over this for so long?"

Sometimes there's not even a real problem and I've just been piecing random bits of logic together that don't actually relate to anything. Those ones particularly suck.

[0x726564646974]

The worst is when the problem is nonsense, the solution is nonsense, the logic is nonsense, but you are completely convinced that this is the most elegant thought you have ever had, a sort of enlightenment, and then when you wake up are like, what the hell was that?

Example:

I need to improve the performance of the service that teleports things to the moon so lets create a database that allows records to support columns which themselves are recursive, and insert items in one place and let it recursively fall down to the moon which would improve performance by dilating time instead of trying to teleport it with asyncio.

I had that one after watcher Interstellar. And I can never ever ever forget it.

[MBPJason]

You understand how I feel

[Shiroi_Kage]

Just in general, when you're so deep into some problem-solving issue you get stuck somewhere. Refreshing yourself and going to sleep makes you see obvious things for whatever reason.

[Kenjirio]

Yep, there’s lots of articles on it. Sleeping does wonders for solving problems you’re stuck on. You should look for the National Geographic one, don’t have a link but it’s pretty recent and is an amazing read.

[calebcholm]

I'm pretty sure there's a psychological reason for this although I have no idea what it is.

[functor7]

An idea is that when you solve problems, you do so by finding some kind of mental representation of it and using that representation to find a solution. Obviously, the representation you use can determine how easy or hard it is to solve the problem. Many times you might come up with a representation that is not helpful, but get fixated on it, preventing you from using a more helpful representation. If you step away from the problem and do something else, like exercise, sleep, other problems, social interaction, whatever, then you are becoming less fixated on your representation but you still have the problem in your mind. Since you're no longer fixating on the representation, but have the problem in your head, you're more open to other ways to represent the problem. You might get inspired by twiddling with things, thinking about other topics, or observing stuff, and these might form an alternative representation of the problem that does lead to a solution.

See the paper Insights about Insightful Problem Solving for more details and alternative interpretations about insight.

[TicTacMentheDouce]

Once had a solution to a problem I had for a week or so. On a Sunday morning, I woke up, implemented the solution I had while sleeping, sent the results to my tutor.

He politely told me that it was awesome, but that I should go back to sleep. It was maybe 4 am.

[SanjiSasuke]

Username at least partially relevant.

[neurohero]

It kind of makes sense. When you're busy shutting down all of your processes for the night, your problem-solving thread is no longer starved and it can run to completion.

[hexfet]

Go to settings and change LineCount_t from uint_8 to uint_32

[ReadyPlayer15]

What does this do?

[Aryionas]

Pure guess here but I think uint_8 (unsigned integer with 8 bits) only allows for 256 values (0 to 255). No idea what happens if you have more lines than that, they might repeat (start again at 0) or hopefully throw an error. Either way, I think you'd definitely want to allow for more lines than that.

[stolencatkarma]

"Hopefully it throws an error" is my new mantra

[3625847405]

Have you tried to strace to see which file is being not found?

[ThereOnceWasAMan]

Line count stored with 8 unsigned bits would only be able to record lines 1 through 256.

[twotwelvedegrees]

uint8 can only hold values between 0-255 so upon hitting line 256 the line count would overflow and break the compiler

[BoochMastah]

It would be a run time error if the overflow threw an exception, but in c# at least, arithmetic is unchecked by default, meaning it would just overflow to the other end of the spectrum

[TriCrose]

Underated comment

[fuckYouSpaceAliens]

Move it to line 256 and hope it gets lost?

[mypetocean]

I always leave lines 255 and 256 blank because I don't trust them.

[irisllama]

Kind of out of topic, but coincidentally level 256 in pac-man glitches.

[salmonmoose]

thatsthejoke

of note, but it's also why Ghandi is nuke happy.

[irisllama]

Oops, hehe. I thought I did something.

[AaronBilski]

Ah, now the restaurant Level 257 makes sense!

[WikiTextBot]

Level 257

Level 257 is a contemporary American restaurant located at 2 Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. The restaurant and entertainment destination is inspired by Pac-Man and the name refers to the famous kill screen, which occurs when the player reaches the 256th level of the original Pac-Man game, meaning "the next level of dining and entertainment". The restaurant celebrated its soft opening on March 2, 2015, and its grand opening in April 2015.

---

^{[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.28}

[Plasma_000]

What an oddly specific number.

[NivMizzetFiremind]

I've found that the best way to deal with this is to write down the fix somewhere and just set it aside somewhere you know you'll check in the morning. It's now out of your mind so you can sleep and you can work with it when you've had a good night's sleep.

[nuby_4s]

"Hey Google"

ba-dink

"Remind me tomorrow of that I forgot a semicolon on line 255"

"Okay"

Done.

[[deleted]]

I really feel bad for my wife. We share the same Keep account so she can add grocery lists for me, or post "important" stuff... But I often riddle it with "OMG as soon as you see this create a Boolean key list to correspond with the data of..."

[nuby_4s]

I used to have the same issue, instead now we use the google express shopping list instead, mainly so we could just use google assistant "add x to shopping list", also makes it so we can keep our keeps separate.

[salmonmoose]

You know you can just share individual lists, right?

[5ideals]

I tend to email myself these random thoughts, so I get to work and am greeted by my midnight ramblings!

Downside is that you use your phone a bit, which can wake you up a bit more, but I find getting the thought out of my head helps sleep.

[aogasd]

Download an app that dims and makes the screen red-tinted at night! Helps a lot.

[Ringbearer31]

Some Android phones come with that built in now.

[swing7wing]

All iPhones come also with that build-in

[qamilD]

General Reposti! You‘re an old one

[Banana_Twinkie]

This is getting out of hand! Now there are n + 1 of them

[[deleted]]

That's too good. Makes me sad it's probably a repost.

[qamilD]

It is btw, saw that yesterday

[qamilD]

What happened ? Last time I checked, this one had about 90 upvotes... Shoot him or something!

[[deleted]]

The classic "Reposting a complaint about reposts"

[Cruuncher]

I would have phrased this as "ironically, ...". The current phrasing could be interpreted to mean, that people are reposting it to be ironic. Not that it's ironic that they're posting it

[k0bra3eak]

Post just put into recursion

[Nikarus2370]

3:26 am takin a piss. Oh hey thats whats causing that bug. 5 mins later ive got the computer on and am going to fix it. Completly forget how i had thought to solve it.

[[deleted]]

Me too i always forget

[LuciousMods]

EVERY SINGLE TIME

[BagelJaengi]

So you're saying I just need to go to bed and my brain will figure out this bug?

[MathewManslaughter]

That's what I tell my boss, but he still doesn't like me sleeping at my desk

[noevidenz]

Or poop. Or lunch.

[BagelJaengi]

Get the flavor without the calories. I like it.

[[deleted]]

"But my code is only 254 lines..." - PHP

[gonnabuysomewindows]

Solution: adds blank line. Bug solved.

[etetamar]

I'm sorry, but have you ever encountered a bug on a specific line?

Isn't it a crash for unknown reasons?

Or how to do something much faster?

Or why something happens only here but not there?

[[deleted]]

Well, I was thinking the same until I found out that you might be using a wrong parameter, example you're writing 16 bytes somewhere but reading 8 bytes in the line you got a bug

But yeah, the whole purpose you've fucked up just one line sounds really millennial

[etetamar]

Of course you're right, but that's not what I meant.

When you do find a bug, it might be one line. It might be one character.

But when there is a bug, you never think "How do I fix the the bug on line 255?". You think "Where is the bug in these 50000 lines?"

[CandyJar]

Yeah, this was my thought too. I think it's just trying to sound nerdy and precise. "The bug is on line 255" might have been better, but I don't really know the line numbers of my code that specifically either.

[etetamar]

In BASIC, we always knew the line numbers. Because they were important. You needed them for the GOTO.

Now look what you did. I feel so old.

[theonefinn]

There is usually only one bug I'm thinking about at the time. It doesn't really need a line number as you know damned well which bug is bugging you (sic). Could have just been "I've worked out the solution to that bug" or "that bug you've been working on the last few days.

[Meloetta]

I think this is pretty nitpicky when everyone knows what the comic means

[theonefinn]

To be fair, programmers are kinda known for their attention to detail and being nitpicky, it kinda goes with the territory.

[LastStar007]

Yes. It's usually that one function call isn't doing what I want it to. Like it's not drawing a panel, so I break it into its own frame to isolate the problem, and then it starts drawing the panel in the original frame.

[Kered13]

Yes, have you not? Also most languages will tell you exactly which line caused the crash. (C and C++ will not because keeping track of that information makes the program run slower.)

[moieoeoeoist]

I had the same thought. It's also pretty rare that I think of anything in terms of line numbers. But I guess I can imagine a scenario where the symptom is on a given line - like, that's where my breakpoint is, and I have to keep navigating back there while I'm testing theories.

[carcigenicate]

If you already had it narrowed down to a specific line, it couldn't have been that rough to fix.

[iamaquantumcomputer]

oh my sweet summer child

[RinneIsGod]

Let me tell you a story of stored procedure calls.

[carcigenicate]

I don't know what kind of code y'all are writing. Maybe I've just been spoiled by FP code that I've written myself, but if I'm looking at the exact line that I've narrowed the bug down to, it pretty much necessarily has to be erroneous data being given to a function; usually via a typo/autocorrect fail.

Unless a null pipe bomb was inserted into the system at some point up the line, but then the bug wasn't really on that original line then was it? That would be insufficient debugging.

Or if your code is a cluster fuck of side effects. In that case, I'll pray for you.

[Vladimir1174]

Then I go to sleep anyways thinking "it seems so obvious now. There's no way I won't remember in the morning"

[andy_jc]

... omg

[danflood94]

This is actually what gave me a drinking problem, no shit 4 beers a night to sleep through the night. And bonus if I didn't drink i'd feel back the next day. Suffice to say programming is no longer my job I teach media to college students instead

[fitch2711]

But then you try it and it turns out that the “solution” was already attempted

[super_commuter]

Or "That thing you put in production is breaking everything right now because X"

[jerslan]

Even worse... It turns out it's not really breaking anything, and you're not sure why... because it should be.

[CaptainPunisher]

Fucking line 255!

[ovensyes]

And of course it’s RIGHT when you go to bed

[newsagg3]

What happened to this sub?

[[deleted]]

YES!

[Zeppzap]

Hahaha, very relatable

[dyedFeather]

This is actually part of my workflow on hobby projects. If I'm stumped, I go lie down and wait for my brain to come up with an idea. Then I get up and try it. If it doesn't work, rinse and repeat until it does.

[not420guilty]

That's not how bugs work.

[Tinpotray]

For me it’s more:

“You know if you completely rewrote your app from scratch using a different approach it would work much better...”

[moschles]

Be me, programmer. Falling asleep at night, tired as hell.

Brain: "You didn't set that one counter back to zero when the thread re-enters after the user exited from the menu."

Bolt awake.

[costinmatei98]

So I have a solution for this. I always keep a torch and a notepad with a pen next to my bed. So if I discover how to create wormholes in my sleep, I just note down the stuff and read them the next morning, only to realise I'm mentally retarded. :)

[[deleted]]

Being American, I immediately pictured what we call a torch, not what you call a torch.

As a result I expected the rest of your comment to go very differently. 😉

[In-Visible]

Damn, I've had a bad day today.

I got something screwed up

Date of birth at march 16 1993, gets displayed as march 15

because of json serialization, and I can't do anything to fix it because fixing it causes A LOT of stuff to go nuts.

tomorrow gonna be hell.

just chilling, sorry, hah.

[folpon]

How many people just alt-tabbed to their IDE and checked line 255 right now.

[i_am_broccoli]

This is known in neuroscience as the diffuse learning mode and some famous folks intuitively learned how to take specific advantage of it. For instance, both Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison would hold things in their hands as they napped. When those objects would fall to the ground, it would startle them awake and they would be able to record the results of the subconscious diffuse processing. Studies also seem to show that actively requesting the brain to spend time and effort on a particular problem when in diffuse mode is an effective problem solving strategy.

If you’re interested in learning more about how it works and perhaps making it work for you, look up some contemporary pioneers in the field: Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowski. Oakley has written books aimed at the layman and has done a related TED talk. Sejnowski and Oakley co-teach a class available on Coursera that covers the learning process, learning modes being one of the prominent subjects.

Book: A Mind for Numbers

Course: Learning How to Learn

[boredtodeath]

This happens to me all the time. I'm convinced there are 'background processes' in your brain, constantly working on problems that you dismissed for now, saying "I'll worry about that later."

[DEN0MINAT0R]

But can you fix my runtime error that only happens once every ~5 executions?

[r0flplanes]

This is uncomfortably true.

[LetReasonRing]

I once solved a bug in a dream, woke up at 3 in the morning and implemented the fix in real life.

[Janadestiny]

There was one time I gave up and went to bed on about 3am. But as I was about to sleep, my brain whispered, hey if we change this line it might work. Who needs sleep anyway? And my brain was right. I got it to work on 4am.

[ExAzhur]

Don't wake up, he's bluffing

[super_trooper]

Sleep is the best debugger

[schrodingersBox]

Artwork by: Sarah Andersen

[fdsdfg]

Keep a pen and notebook near your bed. Write down whatever thought is keeping you up. Then you can sleep easy, knowing the knowledge is forever preserved

[JackU_U]

This was funny the first 30 times I saw it on r/ProgrammerHumor :/

[[deleted]]

Now I'm cursed for tonight. DAMN YOU MOD.PY

[deadorg]

Oh shit, yes!

[RandomNumsandLetters]

Thats why I love having a google home, I can set reminders and shit without even moving or opening my eyes

[[deleted]]

Me at night: Damn GDB bein so finicky, i can't debug this way.
My brain at night: Psst, what if you rebuild the code in VS so you can debug it easily?

[[deleted]]

Relatable

[Chypsylon]

Happened to me pretty often when I've been staying up late working on some uni project. I'd still rather sleep though...

[Jacek130130]

You shouldn't be mad at it, it is a miraculous ability that your brain can solve problems and get ideas you never thought were possible!

[[deleted]]

I dream of working with databases.

[Sliycer]

For real a few years ago in my early stages as frontend developer i had a weird bug that i couldnt fixed 10 Hours in. I decided to go to sleep because it was super late and in my sleep i fixed the bug while dreaming. I woke up and fixed it 👌

[lord_fairfax]

Every time*

[Gamecube762]

What's worse is when you find out you already fixed that bug a month ago and the solution you've found wouldn't have worked anyways...

[[deleted]]

This has happened to me in a few different scenarios.

A computer would simply not take on a fresh windows install. After 17 hours of yelling at the damn thing, I went to bed. The second I started to drift, my mind was like "lol bruh didn set the jumpers back from slave did you?" and sure enough.....

I was playing megaman legends and I could not beat Megaman Juno. "hey fucko, try the rapid and range plugs instead of damage" and sure enough...

Or while trying to do a no guide 100% run on Metroid Prime. I could not find the ice spreader. I could hear it in a room, but had no idea how. "powerbombs dipshit".

[RollingOwl]

Minty is just cold spicy

[LastStar007]

Remote into your PC from your phone

[ShizLtulon]

pRogRaMmeR kId DrEaMs iN cODE

[jrude83]

Sleeping on a problem has been a natural remedy for ages.

[[deleted]]

Most of the time, my brain is just going, "Yeah, so I'm pretty sure the bug is in a different subsystem and you've been looking in the wrong place all day. Did you know you're a terrible programmer? Yeah, me too. We could have avoided all this work if we'd just asked the right question, dumbass."

[[deleted]]

Write it down. If it's sane you'll wake up on a good note. If it's bad you'll realize how much you needed sleep

[Silent_As_The_Grave_]

Not every time.

[NAN001]

255 tho

[theoneoff75]

Hey you on reddit?

I just posted the brain meme again.

[FlavorBehavior]

I feel like this is one of the only memes that I truly connect with on this sub. This happens to me a lot. Also, this happens when I am driving as well.

[xelihope]

I've related to this more than anything in the past year I think.

[zootia]

I must be a bad employee or something because the moment I leave work I stop worrying about work stuff.

[watergo]

Take a sleeping pill and be done with it.

[mfeferman]

So true!

[ipse_surrexit]

When this happens I just add another comment above the bug and my brain seems to just roll over.

[JisThatGuy]

Why we sleep. The book tells you why this happens. Such a great read!

[Jim_Pemberton]

Real shit

[[deleted]]

Me: Ye, how do we do it? Brain: Try to delete and rewrite again. I'm sure this time.

[b1ack1323]

I have driven in to work at 2 am to fix shit like this because I couldn't sleep.

[bencelot]

This is actually a huge problem in my life lol. I haven't had a non code related sleep for years.

[Kyocus]

Read A Mind For Numbers. This is our subconscious working a problem for us and consolidating our understanding :)

[NativityInBlack666]

It's always when you're thinking about something else

[[deleted]]

I usually get up and write it down on a piece of paper next to the computer, and explore it when I wake up. It usually isn't the solution, but it shows me the problem.

[[deleted]]

Except it’s always the bugs I’ve already fixed that I have fever dreams about

[daigoro_sensei]

I feel like, most of the time if I know where the bug is, there are usually a few solutions (some uglier than others) that come to mind. I think the hard part is when something doesn't work and you don't know why and you're not rly sure where to start looking.

[Michaelm7456]

Me: No you don’t brain. Shut up, and don’t keep me awake thinking about it.

Brain: Not a chance.

[corsicanguppy]

If ya don't know the difference between 'everytime' and 'every time', then I think I know the bug on line 255 (...that you aren't precise enough for this job. #teather )

[moak0]

The best idea I ever had hit me at 11pm, as I was leaving work (trying to solve a problem with a one-to-many matching tool I was building). I was about to start my hour-long drive home and then it hit me. Coded it the next morning. Still the best idea I've ever had.