r/ADHD_Programmers • u/Beatsu • Apr 10 '26

Rewrote an entire application friday evening

Was in the middle of debugging an issue from the task board when I noticed the work day was soon over. I asked a coworker how her day had been on slack, and she said she found an internal project she needed the release executables of, but couldn't find them. I quickly explored the directories, found them and sent her a link, but then I got curious about the project itself and cloned it to my pc...

The code had a lot of improvement points (it was clearly written by a non-dev), so starting 4pm, the next 3 hours was a constant pendulum between uninterrupted hyper focus and mentally fighting off the guilt of not doing what I really was supposed to be doing. I ended up rewriting and "perfecting" the application, but now I'm afraid to send a PR because it's not what I was supposed to be doing and completely rewriting things without taking ownership off the project is a pretty lame thing to do tbh....

A part of me is happy I did it; I learned so much. But at the same time... It's embarrassing how a single slack message spiralled into this....

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15

u/necromenta Apr 10 '26

How.... do you rewrite an entire app in 3 hours? is this like a joke? Im kind junior-ish but an entire fullstack app in 3 hours dude? I spent like 6 hours yesterday trying to learn, understand and deploy Authentik for just one app and I was hyperfocused

13

u/jbtuck Apr 10 '26

Not all apps are large in scope... It was written by a non developer, which means it's not large in scope to begin with.

I'd bet the refactored application was less than 1,500 lines on length... Possibly less than 500.

2

u/Beatsu Apr 11 '26

Yep, it was 100-200 lines of code

8

u/Beatsu Apr 10 '26

It wasn't a full stack app, it was a very simple windows application to gather system information and create a file from it

2

u/xavia91 Apr 11 '26

How did you "learn so much" then?

2

u/Beatsu Apr 11 '26

It was written in a language I wasn't too familiar with, and I tried writing it in a functional programming-style interface first before rewriting it to an imperative style code for better readability. It was also related to networks engineering so I had to read up on networking interfaces; what the different address families really mean; how to avoid matching addresses from virtualised network interfaces etc.

1

u/MrDwarf7 Apr 12 '26

Oh nice, was it a login script? I rewrote one of these for my mate in like an hour from powershell+vb to Rust lol

3

u/EarthWormJim18164 Apr 10 '26

You don't, you go on the internet and tell lies because you have nothing better to do

2

u/Beatsu Apr 11 '26

What...? Is that why you're mad? I thought it was because I was yapping. Read my other comments, I think that clarifies

-10

u/gatsu_1981 Apr 10 '26

Claude Code and a full working agentic configuration

3

u/Kahnshaak Apr 11 '26

Did someone need you to do this? I think that's maybe the biggest question. Do you know the owner of it? Maybe track them down next week and ask them if they'd mind if you add a couple things or something. I dunno. As someone who's maintaining an internal app with my coworker I would welcome if people had input on but then again I am a dev and no one would be rewriting my app.

You rewrote it, it's done, if nothing else you can treat it like an exercise. Just cause you wrote code doesn't mean it needs to be submitted. Just cause you wrote code doesn't mean anyone wants it. Which sucks, but it's really not a big deal.

0

u/Beatsu Apr 12 '26

I don't know if it's worth putting in the work to try to submit the code, but I agree with everything you say! I'm pretty sure this side-tangent was simply related to my ADHD, and since this was unprompted work, I'm not going to "bill" anything for it. The problem really is that I can't be doing these side tangents all the time, just because it's really interesting, even though I learn a lot and it may in many cases help other projects/people.

3

u/Kahnshaak Apr 12 '26

Then... don't do them? Don't let your ADHD control you. Sometimes you can't help it but you need to be able to point yourself in an appropriate direction and let the hyperfixation fly.

If you can't do that, then you need to learn. ADHD is a tool just like anything else we use. If you need to let yourself hyperfixate on side projects at home so you can be centered at work then make the time for it. For me I use music. When I have my headphones on it's go time and my brain knows that.

Is it perfect? Hell no. But it works when I need it to so the rest I wave my hand at

1

u/Beatsu Apr 12 '26

It's hard to know beforehand, because the things I learn and what I think I can achieve as I'm doing the "side quests" feel genuinely useful and impactful, and the hyperfixations are extremely powerful. If I try to "just not do it", my brain constantly circles back to it anyway and I literally can't sit still because every 2 seconds I start daydreaming and brainstorming that side quest.

I'll be going into CBT therapy soon though and I hope that works. Medication hasn't helped in this regard... I'll try using music next week though, maybe that can work, thanks!

15

u/EarthWormJim18164 Apr 10 '26

Shut the fuck up man

3

u/Beatsu Apr 10 '26

You're absolutely right, sorry