🧠 The Two States of a Programmer

#webdev #help #mentorship

🧠 The Two States of a Programmer

By hmzasfyn — Professional Keyboard Smasher and Certified StackOverflow Scavenger

“Programming isn’t about what you know; it’s about what you can Google.”

— Unknown genius with 100k reputation on Stack Overflow

There are only two known states in which a programmer can truly exist:

🔥 1. “Why the heck isn’t this working??” 😵‍💫

This is the default developer experience (DDE). If you haven't screamed into the void at 3 AM over a null pointer or a semicolon, are you even a real dev?

🔍 Common Symptoms:

30 tabs open, 27 of them are Stack Overflow.
You've typed print("HERE") in 12 different places.
You rewrote the same function 4 times, hoping it would behave differently.
You begin questioning your entire career choice.

🤦‍♂️ Real-world case:

def validate_user(username):
    if username is not None:
        if username != "":
            if len(username.strip()) > 0:
                return True
    return False

print(validate_user(" "))  # Output: True 💀

“I spent 6 hours debugging an issue that turned out to be a missing = instead of ==. Then I took a 3-hour nap on the floor.”

— @backend_beast on Twitter

🗣️ Famous Last Words:

“This should be a quick fix.”

— RIP, 3 hours ago

✨ 2. “How the heck is this working??” 😳

This is the rare and terrifying second state — when your code works, but for reasons science cannot explain. It passes all tests. It behaves correctly. And you. have. no. idea. why.

😨 Symptoms:

You refuse to touch the code again out of fear.
You leave a comment that just says: # don't question it
You pat yourself on the back, then back away slowly.
You feel like you summoned a demon, but a helpful one.

🧙‍♂️ Real-world example:

// This somehow fixes a memory leak I couldn’t find. I don’t know why.
char *ptr = malloc(100);
ptr[0] = '\0'; // 🤷‍♂️ Mystery line of salvation

“I fixed a bug by adding a sleep(1) and it started working. I don’t know whether to celebrate or cry.”

— @fuzzy_brain_dev on Mastodon

“Half of programming is explaining to your future self why you did something. The other half is trying to remember what the heck you were doing.”

— Anonymous senior dev on Reddit

🧪 Quantum Dev Mechanics

Sometimes, your code is simultaneously broken and working, and only collapses into a state of failure when someone else tries to run it.

“It worked on my machine.”

— Every developer ever

“Well, we don’t ship your machine.”

— DevOps, with passive-aggression enabled

📉 The Debugging Spiral

Debugging flowchart:

This can't happen.
That doesn't happen on my machine.
Oh, wait...
facepalm intensifies

💡 Bonus Quote:

“If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”

— Edsger Dijkstra

🧘 State 3: The Mythical Zen Coder 🧘‍♂️

(aka “I have no idea how, but everything works.”)

Some call it the Flow State. Others call it Divine Possession. This rare and mythical state is when:

You write 500 lines of perfect code in one sitting.
All tests pass.
You don’t even remember typing half of it.

Quote from the trenches:

“I blacked out, and now I have a full login system with OAuth and cookies. Send help.”

— @frontend_overlord

Sadly, this state vanishes as quickly as it appears — usually when your manager says “Can we add just one more small feature?”

🧠 Final Thought:

Programming isn’t a science. It’s a chaotic ritual of hope, sprinkled with caffeine, semicolons, and Ctrl+Z.

“The best code is the code you don’t have to write.”

— Jeff Atwood (Co-founder of Stack Overflow)

“Code never lies. Comments sometimes do.”

— Ron Jeffries