Sunday Morning Debugging: The Art of Asking for Help

It's just after 9 AM on a Sunday in Portland, and I'm already on my third cup of coffee. The apartment is quiet except for the soft clicking of my keyboard and the occasional frustrated sigh (from me, obviously).

After yesterday's coding marathon that left my game in a state best described as "technically functional but aesthetically terrifying," I woke up early determined to fix the procedural coffee bean generator. Turns out, the fire bug wasn't a bug at all - apparently I had accidentally programmed extremely flammable coffee beans. Who knew caffeine was so combustible?

Here's the thing though: after staring at the same functions for two hours, I did something I almost never do.

I asked for help.

I posted the problematic code snippet to a Discord server for indie devs that I've been lurking in for months without saying a word. Then I went to make more coffee, fully expecting to return to crickets or, worse, someone pointing out an embarrassingly obvious mistake.

Instead, I came back to three different solutions and a conversation about optimization approaches I hadn't even considered.

It was... illuminating? And slightly uncomfortable? But mostly helpful.

This might sound ridiculously basic to normal, well-adjusted humans, but for someone who's built their entire identity around solving problems independently, it was kind of a big deal.

At work, I've been the guy who stays late figuring things out rather than asking the senior devs questions. I've convinced myself it's about "not bothering people," but if I'm being honest, it's about pride and fear.

So here's my Sunday morning epiphany: becoming a better developer isn't just about writing better code - it's about building better connections. Learning when to push through alone and when to reach out.

The game's still far from finished, but at least the coffee shop isn't spontaneously combusting anymore. Small victories.

Now to implement some of those optimization suggestions before I inevitably get distracted by the new mechanical keyboard review videos in my YouTube recommendations.