How do you deal with a problem that feels completely over your head? I want to develop side projects but sometimes I have trouble starting/continuing when I feel like I can’t find a solution after hours of research.

Who/where do you turn to to find solutions when you run into this problem? I feel like I lose determination when I run into a wall I can’t get around.

There are two important kinds of road blocks. The first one is actually easy, but you have to know the trick. That lends itself well to searching for a solution that explains the trick.

The other one is difficult by itself so that there is no easy trick readily presented on Stackoverflow. In that case, I stop searching for a solution and instead start researching about the problem domain.

Before you can come up with a solution, you need to understand what the problem is, and how the problem domain actually works. That includes research down the tech stack, sometimes even to physics or math.

When you have that, you know more about the problem domain and can look rather for problems other people have had with that, not solutions. That will save you a ton of trial and error loops.

And then you design your solution with the knowledge that you have now.

I wait, don’t think about it and sooner or later it solves by itself.

To others more experienced developer friends, and my mentor

@Fast-Nop Well said 👌

As @Fast-Nop said, but I'd explain it as, "break the problem into smaller problems." If the problem is overwhelming you, you haven't simplified it enough, or you're asking the wrong question (and potentially misunderstanding what the problem actually is). Think about how you can break it up into smaller problems that, when solved, contribute to solving the bigger problem.

Another approach to add what has been said.

Write the problem down, on paper if it helps.

Ensure you understand concretely the problem.

Sometimes just doing this solves the problem in your mind.

Once you have done the above and nothing is working then purposely take on a different task if you can. Take a walk, eat lunch. This will engage your subconscious to work on the problem. A bit later the subconscious will pop up a message to the conscious. Often times with a well formulated answer.

That mean only that you develop the infrastructure on the fly, and at a certain point u get stuck !
U must list the features list (like a scope of work) than see what those features require..
Than in the end, conceive the infrastructure that can handle all this
U are doing thing up-side-down i bet

@powerfulparadox thanks for commenting. I do try to actively break down large problems into simpler steps, but sometimes I just can’t figure out how to get from A to C. Sometimes I’ll know logically how to get there, but I’ll lack the knowledge on syntax/ logic commands that will actually get me there. (If I’m not making any sense let me know.)

@Fast-Nop can i ask you to clarify what you mean by problem domain?

@stingarray14 And this is where learning about the type of problem (problem domain) comes into play. Can you learn more about similar problems? If not, do you understand the basics well enough? If not, learning more about some of the related basic concepts that you don't know as much about could help you derive your own solution. That's (hopefully) a simplified version of the advice @Fast-Nop gave.

But, sometimes the problem is just really hard. As my Intro to Engineering professor said, "all the easy problems have been solved; otherwise we wouldn't need engineers." Sometimes the best thing to do is take a break: your brain uses the sleep cycle to reprocess what it encountered during the day. Sometimes it finds solutions while it does so. If you're prepared when you wake up, you can write it down to use later. Also, explaining the problem as you understand it to someone else (hopefully someone capable of helping you solve it) can be incredibly useful, too.

@stingarray14 The problem domain is what the software is about.

Suppose you want to write a program for a moon lander - then you surely need to know about space travel, physics, how rockets work, closed loop control theory and so on.

@Fast-Nop for moon lander based on how Israel failed you need to know about connection and fuel management 😂