Ask HN: Do you find solutions moments after asking for help? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you find solutions moments after asking for help?

5 pointsdamoncali4 comments

I've noticed a pattern with me when trying to solve tricky bugs. Often, right after I get frustrated enough to give up and ask someone to help, I find the solution. This happens enough that I wonder if it happens to others, and if there is some sort of reason why - perhaps the way the brain works. Anyone?

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Yes, all the time. I have worked doing tech support for 14+ years, and think I can shed some light on this - it's simple. The simple act of properly framing a question often makes the answer obvious. It's defining the question/problem that is the really important part in problem solving.

I seem to recall the story of a comp sci professor keeping a teddy bear (or maybe another stuffed animal) outside his office. Before any student could ask him about a difficult problem they were having, they had to ask the teddy bear about that problem. This supposedly saved him some time by triggering this exact phenomenon for his students.

Happens to me a lot, especially now. All I can provide is anecdote, though I like dholowiski’s explanation of this and it’s likely the same case for me.

I’m a designer/developer, but lately I’ve wanted to focus more on the former. When I used to run into a backend problem that’s blocking me from finishing my interface work I would just fix it myself. This has now changed, where I now attempt a problem for a while then inevitably ask a developer for help when things don’t look favourable. ~Half of the time I figure out the solution while waiting for the engineer’s help.

I use this concept but with a human: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

I'm also someone's 'duck', we have an agreement we will listen to each other's problems for the purpose of the problem-holder finding the solution during the explanation. We use the word 'duck' specifically so we know what's going to happen in the next few sentences, rather than me put on my 'let me solve this for you' hat.

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