Debugging: stop goose-chasing

This is something that happens to me almost exclusively in school, but sometimes at work too. It's when I'm trying to fix a bug and I'm running out of time. It never happens with personal projects. In the case of my thesis, my current set of bugs could actually push back graduation and force me to pay more tuition. 

It's when you think you almost have the solution to your bug, and you're running out of time, so you keep frantically trying random tiny things based on half-baked leaps of intuition. Then suddenly it's 8 hours later and your back hurts and it doesn't work still. 

I fixed my biggest issue with my foam simulator but my shader is having major bugs with data transfer. The values are correctly inserted but all get set to 0...somewhere before rendering. Even though the shader works in other scenes and doesn't lose the data. 

I started to get so frustrated that I nearly broke something. My github commit comments were also angry. Hopefully the one person who starred it doesn't unstar it due to that. OOF...In reality, I was panicking. Sure I love coding, but I'm running out of time. I want my master's done by the spring, and I wanted the code fixed before Monday when my new job starts, but I also haven't been preparing enough for Sunday piano. Oh and my edx course is aggressively reminding me that I'm almost out of time to finish it. And I've been in this degree for FAR too long and I need to move on with my life. 

So I went on like 20 wild goose chases, ran out of time to shop, skipped multiple planned study sessions...and to no avail. 

I straight up shut off my computer when I realized what was happening. And I ate dinner and watched a show. I will not screw up my back or my sanity lol. I refuse. Regardless of what my dad may say about "just sit there for 16 hours and finish it" lmao. 

What is the solution to this? Stop goose chasing. When you think you have the cause of a bug, slow down. Isolate and break things down to their tiniest pieces. Break out of hyperfocus too. That's how I fixed my previous bug and that's how I'll fix this one too. Slowing down isn't fun, but it saves time in the long run. 

Now, back to piano and edx...then a bit of writing, internet, gaming and early to bed. Tomorrow, standard block but with extra piano. I'll also be fixing my water surface, and then...diving right on back into the foam shader bug. But this time, deliberately. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unleashing my inner Disney Princess ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ at the 2024 Disney Princesses Half Marathon

Image
TL;DR it was amazing and perfect  and we are going to make this an annual tradition. I may edit this with photos later, but I'm probably going to forget.  Recently, I spent 5 wonderful days donating my dollarbucks and soul to the evil mouse in Orlando. I did it for the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  Just look at that happy little alligator musician. He's so CHONKY. It's adorable. I love him. How could you NOT run a half marathon for him when he's cheering you on?  (My dad says it's weird to say the word "adorable" as a man, which makes zero logical sense and obviously means I need to use that word as often as possible. I will also continue to wear my rings and maybe I'll start flashing my pink protein shaker. Just to cause a little discomfort, because it's funny.)  I haven't seen the movie yet actually so idk if the gator is a major character or not. But JUST LOOK AT HIM.  My cousin and I had been planning a Disney trip, specifically centered
Read more

The 20-something types of Computer Science majors

Image
I've been way too distracted with this blog lately, and I need to hurry up and start getting crap done. But...I've been dying to write this lol.  The advanced neckbeard A rare variety. When a neckbeard is forced out of his mom's basement and into college, he becomes an Advanced Neckbeard. You can always tell when he's coming, because you can smell him from half a mile away. He is very overweight, and wears shirts that are either plain or adorned with anime/gaming graphics. These shirts are either stained with sweat, Hot Cheetos, or something a little bit more, ah, suspicious . He is so socially unskilled that he makes everyone else in the major look normal. Age 30+, GPA at a 2.0 or just barely above it. Will never drop the major despite his lack of effort, because he simply doesn't care if he gets bad grades. In fact, he is probably highly intelligent, but his grades will never reflect that. Nevertheless, he will get a much higher paying job than a regular neckbeard
Read more

The Evenstar

I've never liked this world much.  Ever since I was a little kid, I always dreamed of going somewhere else. I created this alternate version of Earth that had everything and everyone that I loved, but with all these improvements to it. Magic was real. So were dragons. Dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct. Technology allowed people to fly. A network of glass corridors provided transport between this world and mine, snaking through streams of stars, galaxies, and lightyears of blackness.  And more than anything, I wasn't alone. I don't remember why I spent so much time alone as a kid. I really wish I did. All I know is that when I was in my  world, I always had someone by my side.  The feeling of being out of place here was overwhelming. It still is. That sense of not belonging, of longing for somewhere else, it has never gone away.  When I was in middle school, being bullied daily, I escaped to that world. The boys who tripped me and spit on me disappeared, replaced by tropical
Read more