Chasing Problems like a mad dog

I have been working on a little toy app on the side, for vibes, and it’s been super fun. There is a part of the app that asks the user to access their contacts list.

Every functionality in an app is powered by code that someone has to write. Some features are simple: you click a button and the 💩 emoji shows up – super easy to make. Other features, like accessing the contacts list, are something I have never done before, and not only that, I had no idea where to begin.

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I started Googling on December 9th. The solution involved using a programming language, Rust, which I had very little familiarity with.

I spent two days getting better at Rust but still couldn’t quite crack the particular problem of syncing a person’s contacts list.

On the 11th, I was hopeless and contacted a random Rust programmer on the internet to help me. He was kind of to hold my hand through the process and on the 15th I figured out the issue.

Non-engineers don’t understand the joy of figuring out a hard problem like this, something you have been working days on. I texted everyone who would remotely care:

The problems didn’t end there. I’ll leave out the technical details but for the syncing to work exactly the way I wanted required 3 more days. In the meantime, I bugged my boss at work, random strangers on the internet, and shady internet forums.

But I finally figured it out! It was literally the best moment ever:

One of the most important lessons my dad taught me was to chase problems like a mad dog. To stay on a problem, for weeks, months, even years until you crack it. Most problems will yield and they are often easier than it looks. But it will only happen if you stick to the problem and don’t give up at the first sign of discomfort.

I wish you the very best with the hard problems and questions you’re grappling with right now. If you wanna brainstorm with me, lmk, I’d love to help ❤️🙏