Yes, I made up that term as a backronym to match my initials. I’ve been trying to write a blog post mostly about GitHub organizations but I got preoccupied trying to describe why I was struggling to write that post and that meta-post is easier to write at this time so here it is.
As of the time of this writing I am 41 years of age and have been programming on and off in various capacities for almost 30 of those years. There’s no shortage of information stored in my brain. Lots of nodes, an insane number of edges trained and optimized over an interesting career for fast random access in both directions.
And not just about programming, there’s other nerdy topics like fictional timelines, an at times annoying supply of Chicago trivia and navigational data, birthdays of family and friends, and yes a lot of stuff about programming. And it’s all so associative, if I see a thing or hear a thing or think about a thing I quickly jump 3-5 steps away to other “related” things. Things that are, things that were, and “some things which have not yet come to pass”.
In certain very specific contexts this can be a powerful tool but in the last few years it’s become a massive hindrance to communicating effectively if at all. Because communicating effectively isn’t random, it’s serial. Start to finish, top to bottom, in order of appearance or importance I need to take this multidecade old wiki and walk it from a random entry point, not get stuck in infinite cycles, not stack overflow, not timeout, not grow exponentially grinding to a halt, not start mutating the data while retrieving it, and write all of that information out in a linear order.
And I have to apply… or at least choose to apply, a good deal of empathy to that process. What must be said as a prerequisite? What counters or confusion or just plain questions are likely to arise. And from ages 25-35 or so this was fairly easy. I often joke about posting “Walls of Text” or nicknaming myself “Option Explicit”. But in the last few years I just can’t seem to brain-dump at will. I can’t find where to start (or stop). This is probably one of those life skills I would have developed if school hadn’t been so easy for me.
I can respond to prompts pretty well, to lean into the current AI parlance. If someone asks me a question on Discord or some other place I can regurgitate a fair amount “off the top of my head”. If I have a substrate like a source document or outline I can transform it, decompressing information as I go. That’s how I wrote my “Exhausting List of Differences Between VB.NET and C#”, I didn’t go one by one trying stuff or compare the language specifications line by line, I just looked at the existing structure of the spec(s) and traversed it and recalled experiences as a user, experiences reported from customers, bugs seen in triage, etc. The bulk of that information is just cached in my brain and I don’t really have any control over that.
It does not help that my favorite programming language uses so many keywords that commonly pop up in everyday English sentences that like random signage sends me off, “If And Until… what would that mean?”.
My 3rd manager at Microsoft, had our team do an exercise called Strengths Finder. It’s a kind of psychological personality test you take and it gives you a report on your top 5 “themes” or strengths. The idea being that if you know what you’re great at you can prioritize investing time and energy into maximizing the benefit of those strengths rather than endlessly trying to patch up every weakness–if you’re The Flash, run fast and don’t try to be as strong as Superman or as smart as Batman. Here are my Top 5 Themes:
I remember when I first got the report I think I said to the team something like “Oh, great, so nothing practical or immediately useful, yay!”.
Now, I could fight this or find out how to ride the waves better. I have tremendous context and relevant thought and problem solving and strategy that’s all up here (* points at skull *) I just can’t seem to get a handle on it. What knots to untangle first.
I’m trying to build systems to support productive use of my knowledge and abilities. At the moment I’m thinking if I can just off load pieces to GitHub issues or discussions I can kinda fill them out lean on that to get me unstuck.
Anyway, any advice from anyone who’s dealt with this kind of lack of discipline would be appreciated. I’ve never been on Adderall or Ritalin before. They acquired bad reputations in my childhood for abuse and over-prescription. Maybe I’ve let fear keep me from legitimate treatment and am now paying the price.
Otherwise just consider this more context setting from me. Thanks for listening.
Regards,
-ADG
Anthony's blog 