Ken Tilton  <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| John Connors wrote:
| > ...quite difficult in these circumstances: one week I have plenty
| > of time and get a sizeable chunk of work done, but for the next two
| > weeks I get almost no time, and forget most of the details of the code
| > and the general direction I was taking the project in..
...
| You are doomed. I must sit in front of my sofwtare for hours before I 
| begin to become productive. Interruptions longer than three hours 
| require a three-day re-immersion before productivity returns.
| Immersion is the word I use. ...
+---------------

I call it "reloading my (primary) cache", or "loading all of the
necessary context back into associative[1] short-term memory".
Once loaded, I can tolerate a *few*, *short* interruptions without
losing substantial context, but even a single half-hour total
interruption can blow the whole cache [especially if the interruption
itself requires loading new context to service].

It's a bummer, but seems to be the way (some kinds of) creativity
works. At least IME...


-Rob
[1] "Associative" in the psychological sense of being readily-
    available to make connections or associations with other data
    in short-term memory, not in the cache memory organization sense.

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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