
Ask HN: Developer's Block. Please Advice - parvatzar
I am facing something that every developer does on a number of occassions in their careers i.e. a challenging and an insurmountable problem to solve , build and deliver a complex feature with near infinite user scenarios and edge cases. This is not the very first time in my 5 years plus career that I am facing this situation. However , this time and probably the very first time I feel paralyzed and almost defeated by this feature that am trying to build since almost a week (including the weekend). Every solution I build fails to achieve one or more core scenarios or unit tests. I am almost at the end of my estimated schedule without a stable feature that I am to deliver and demo this week to end users. I am extremely passionate about the software development craft (with a big thanks to the HN community for that!). I love solving such problems and have done so from the very moment I took my first software dev role right out of college. I really don&#x27;t know why am feeling unusually stressed out due to this one seemingly unconquerable feature. Inspite of having put in extra hours at work I see no perfect solution on the horizon . What makes me even more disappointed in myself is that as a senior developer I am unable to solve this , and I aspire to work in companies like Microsoft , Amazon etc. Seeking advice from this wonderful community. How do I deal with this and what are some steps I could follow to get through this without losing my mind? What can I do to prevent myself from having a nervous breakdown like this in future? How did you deal with such situations in your career and get out of it still standing tall? Thanks!
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modbait
Sometimes when I find myself stressing or procrastinating on something I'm
supposed to implement, I eventually realized that I've semi-consciously told
myself that the task would be "easy" (e.g., "this will only take an hour or
two"), and it's become apparent that my internal estimate is wildly off. In
effect, I've told myself how things "should" be, but reality has chosen not to
comply.

At this point, it helps me to step back, dismiss my prior estimate, and look
again with fresh eyes. Break the problem down into tiny pieces and ask myself,
being as realistic (i.e., pessimistic) as possible how long each part is
really likely to take. That's kind of hard, because you're marking to market
and realizing your paper losses. But it can actually be quite motivating,
because now you've got a whole new game, a game you actually now have a chance
to win.

(Along these lines, I also think you should call off your demo.)

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parvatzar
Appreciate your advice! I called off the demo,finally built that feature after
a long week and weekend, and have scheduled to demo this week.

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cerberusss
Call off the demo, just bite that bullet. Also, get help from your manager or
maybe better, another senior developer but preferably one with twenty years of
experience.

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parvatzar
Thanks for the advice!I did the same and with two minds together got this done

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cerberusss
Awesome! I suspect that every developer has gone through such moments. It's
the way you grow. You have to share the XP but still get the loot and the gold
pieces :)

