[optymizer]

I like the vulnerability displayed by the author. I'll share a moment myself:

A few years ago I was the TL on a FAANG Android project, where for a few months I was doing more spreadsheet/TPM work than usual, and didn't have much time for coding. Once we had a meeting where I ended up coding in Kotlin live in front of a dozen younger devs to discuss the implementation of some feature. My work background is Android and Java/Kotlin, but at the time I was mostly coding in C on the side, and in the moment my brain just forgot what the syntax in Kotlin is for a "switch-case" statement, so I wrote "switch", "match", etc, struggling like a first year student, while everyone watched me fumble, until I just gave up and said: "oh my god, I'm forgetting Kotlin. What the hell is the switch keyword in Kotlin called?". Then someone said: "it's when".

I felt old and a little embarrassed, but mostly I was surprised at how quickly I could forget a programming language I used daily.

[000ooo000]

I had a boss ask me to prepare $thing he would later copy into the appropriate place. Called me over to his desk, couldn't copypaste it into the textarea. Keystrokes weren't pasting. Whatever he was doing was definitely not Ctrl+V. "Try right-click > paste.. there you go". There was no question he was technical. I guess we can't be at peak performance 100% of the time can we? Just tonight I asked my partner who was going to shower with our toddler as he sat in the bath in front of me..

[imetatroll]

I only hope that our field becomes heavier in the upper age category. Then maybe people will be more sympathetic towards my fumbles around languages I use frequently. ... I feel like I am always looking something up.

[vict7]

I feel this is similar to how my brain works. If I am not using a skill close to every day/week then it can atrophy fairly quickly. On the plus side, it also comes back quickly (usually) if I start using it with greater regularity again.

I notice that general concepts usually stick better in my brain than specific things like your example with ‘when’. Even those are pruned down a bit after long enough though.

[standarditem]

I write switch statements rarely enough that I probably have to look up the syntax every second or third time I use one. There is no shame in forgetting something used rarely enough that it doesn't stick. Especially when you can quickly look it up.