>They don't make a pill for slowness They do make a pill for slowness. Several, in fact. In subjective order of strength, modafinil, methylphenidate (Ritalin),

>They don't make a pill for slowness They do make a pill for slowness. Several, in fact. In subjective order of strength, modafinil, methylphenidate (Ritalin), and amphetamines (e.g. Adderall aka speed). Not that I'm suggesting these, but it's not called speed for no reason, yeah? It is not just for ADD people; the benefits to everyone else are immense (well except potential heart problems and psychosis.) You should definitely follow the other suggestions, like verifying that you're truly operating slowly (it's difficult to accurately judge oneself). And making sure you're healthy, etc. The stuff you are describing though, it sounds more like unfamiliarity. If it took you three hours to debug something, why was that? Are you following a scientific approach in debugging? Analyze and get feedback on how you're missing things. I spent hours debugging an app that I wrote and it all came down to a one-line fix. I was just unlucky. Edit: You can check erowid out. From developer friends, I've seen them: 1. Read hundreds of pages of material in a single setting, at a fast pace, far beyond normal ability. 2. Ability to do math/calculations increases several fold. 3. Output soars once focused on a problem. 4. Grand-scale ideas (sometimes even workable.) The big downside and why not all devs should be on it all the time is the tendency to lose sight of the big picture. Like spending all day optimizing for TLB-hits... in PHP.