4 ms·
The cool thing is that it's not even as facetious as it appears. "Writing down the problem" is a legitimate, and very useful, tool for problem solving, and one
by jsharpe 16y ago
The cool thing is that it's not even as facetious as it appears. "Writing down the problem" is a legitimate, and very useful, tool for problem solving, and one that is often skipped.
- nostrademons 16y agoAnother useful step is "Ask a friend for help." Not because they'll solve it, but because the act of reducing the problem to a complexity simple enough to be explained to another person often makes the solution obvious.
- sophacles 16y agoOn the other end, writing down the solution, is also a good tool. The number of times I thought I 'figured something out' by thinking real hard (in the shower or whatever) only to find problems during this final stage is large. It is very much the same thing as telling a fellow developer about a bug you can't solve, only to solve a trivial issue half way thru the explanation. The writing down or explanatory phase is quite important.