Never give up, never surrender

The title sounds like a line from a bad movie (it’s actually from Galaxy Quest), but it’s a good attitude to have as a developer. Developers encounter many problems, most of which they then consequently solve, but some of those may be so difficult that an inexperienced developer may accidentally say “I tried to solve the problem, but I couldn’t”. The correct reply if someone says this to you is “…yet”.

There are virtually no problems you can face as a developer that cannot be solved. That’s why problems should be referred to as “challenges”. Overcoming a difficult challenge is really just a matter of thinking harder, working harder and spending more time on it.

And the solution might be 5 minutes of work away. In another bad movie, The Mist, they should have also have spent a little more time before giving up. Spoiler alert, I’m gonna give away the ending of that movie now:

The Mist is about a strange mist that kills anyone that enters into it – the mist is everywhere outside, so people are trapped inside. In every case where someone who goes out, they die a horrible death seconds later. Towards the end of the movie, they succeed in getting in a car and are driving away, trying to get away from the mist. They are still in it, though, so they’re not safe yet – if they get out of the car, they’ll all die.

The car runs out of gas and they’re still inside the mist. They know that if they go out, they will die horribly – and obviously they can’t stay in the car forever, so they find themselves out of options. They all decide to kill themselves. They agree that the one of them should shoot the other 4 people in the car, including his own son.

He does it!

Since there was only 4 bullets in the gun, he cannot shoot himself as well. Instead he exits the car and thus enters the mist, ready to die the same horrible death that he has seen so many times before. But that doesn’t happen. The mist lifts and the cavalry arrives.