I'm an application developer and have been writing computer code for more than 30 years. I've seen lots of trends come and go, I had to learn new ways of coding, new languages, new platforms and along the way learned how to avoid making some types of mistakes again and again.

Experience makes us better!

Right? Right?

Yes, that's right, but it doesn't mean it makes us perfect because there will always be more to learn, more new and better ways to accomplish the same old tasks and what makes progressing at any career interesting, is having constant opportunities to be challenged and to become better at what we do.

And then there are those days when we need to meet some deadlines and work nonstop trying to finish what we have to do..

I work at a University and with the covid-19 situation changing every minute, work has been pretty hectic as we try to get ready for the Fall semester. Before we even get finished with some code changes to adapt the apps for the Fall, we receive new requests to make more changes.

This week has been particularly busy for me, and yesterday I was already very tired at the end of a long nonstop working day, but I wanted to get one more task done. Just one more, which turned into just one more, and just one more, and... Does that sound familiar to anyone?

I was writing a very simple piece of code but the app kept crashing as I tried to test a function that used the code below (not expecting you to understand the code, displaying it here so I can show you that the issue was just a simple, minor, yet important detail that I couldn't see just because I was tired).

After getting a bit frustrated I finally decided to quit for the day. This morning, after a good night of sleep, I looked at my code and what was causing the error was immediately obvious to me, duh...

(Photo by Jack Carter on Unsplash)

I had just missed a space here between the r and the “:

With so many years of experience it's crazy to think that I still fail at doing the most basic thing of all things:

Taking enough breaks!

Are you remembering to take some breaks so you can feel rested and do what you do better?

Cintia