Fresh Pair Of Eyes

It's amazing what a fresh pair of eyes can see.

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Sometimes I am working on a bug or a bit of code, and I find that I just can't see what is wrong, no matter how hard I look. Of course, looking hard just means that my eyes are not fresh. When I realise this is happening, I get a fresh pair of eyes. My two favourite ways to do this are:

• Ask someone else to look at the problem. Usually their eyes are fresh (at least with respect to this problem).
• Have myself look at the problem after doing something different for a while, or resting, or sleeping. This is really just a variation of the first method, where the someone else is just myself with the prejudices rearranged.

All too often, the amazing part is that the someone else will see that I was making an amazingly stoopid mistake. Sometimes this is embarrassing but ultimately it is character-building. HumilityIsKey.