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Thanks in part to ADHD, I'm sure, I have severe tunnel vision while reading and writing code. I need to constantly diagram, take notes, and walk through call st

Thanks in part to ADHD, I'm sure, I have severe tunnel vision while reading and writing code. I need to constantly diagram, take notes, and walk through call stacks (and re-walk) just to maintain my mental model. I am insanely jealous of people who can keep everything in their head. Maybe there's a silver lining in that my methods are more resistant to brain-busting situations, depression, cognitive decline, etc., but I'm not sure that I'm convinced.

kortex 4y ago
The flip side of that is people who can keep everything in their head often write code which reflects exactly that, and that code is very hard for others to scrutinize. I try to lean into just such a silver lining. I like to write my code for worst-case future-me: what would it take for my sleep-deprived, Monday morning, uncaffeinated brain to make sense of? It definitely helps, especially even considering that approach, I often find I overestimate my future ability to understand past code.