How to deal with Programmer's Block

Eventually, we all go through a bout of Programmer's Block. What is Programmer's Block? It's very similar to Writer's Block except it happens to programmers.

I have been struggling for a very long time with Programmer's Block and didn't realize it. I knew what I wanted to do (vaguely) but just couldn't get things off to a good start. For me, it was the big picture... I could not see the big picture.

I started playing around with the little pieces. I worked on the tiny algorithms knowing I would fit them in somehow... but I just didn't have that aha, big picture moment. And then...

I posted this question on P.SE "How do you get past the Analysis to Paralysis when working on a new project?" and within 3 minutes it received 1 down vote and 1 vote to close. I was not happy. I'm thinking great... even the people on P.SE are not going to help. (try this link instead)

Soon I got some great feedback. I'm not going to repeat it all here... don't think I could. Might be copyright violation. So, you'll just have to read it there. Make sure to read the comments... there's some really good stuff in them.

I love yellow stickies.

This post is dedicated to all of you who have or will go through "Programmers Block".

Special thanks to:
haylem & Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

Enjoy! Semper Fi
Gunny Mike

Restoring Quick Config on a TMS AdvStringGrid

I recently purchased the TMS Component Pack mainly because of the grid capabilities TMS offers over Delphi's native grid. So I started playing around with the grid and flipping things on and off to see how the grid would be affected.

I was playing around with the "Set Look" option of the Quick Config. I tried out every option and settled on Windows XP. Then I clicked the little X in the red box and ... poof it was gone. No more Quick Config. I spent the next three hours trying to figure out how to turn it back on.

Property ShowDesignerHelp determines wether the "Quick Config" is on or off. Geez, I was looking for a property called "QuickConfig"... no wonder I couldn't find it.

Semper Fi,
Gunny Mike