Actually, I've had 2 Eureka moments in my life, one of them related the programming. It feels to me like a crystal taking shape in my head
My programming Eureka was similar to Martin's above. I remember clearly when I understood pointers. I didn't know it one moment, and the next moment it all clicked. It was back in college and my university didn;t have C++ (which was stupid). I wanted to learn C++ on my own, so I started reading Stroustroup. Man, I tried everything with that book and I wouldn't understand pointers. I read the book, slept with the book, put it under my pillow, tried snorting it. It just didn't click. Then one day, I was stuck in traffic in a bus, and I started dozing off, and then I woke up "I understand pointers". All the things that I had read in the book, maybe 10 times already, suddenly came together. The crystal finally took shape. It's like in the Matrix. They plugged Neo in "I know Kung fu" It was like that (waayy before Matrix came out) sleepy sleepy sleepy "I know pointers". I don't even remember what the Stroustroup book looks like anymore. I remember the crystal moment
Second one was actually the first one. This was right after I started going to college. In school, I was a simple boy. I was entirely dependent on my parents to take care of my needs, and I used to study. Espescially, I loved Math, Algebra in particular. Oh, I could solve those equations all day. Actually, I would make up equations just to solve them. Actually, I was dissapointed when I learnt the Quadtratic method. It took the fun out of it. Outside of Math, I was rather dumb. I was like the dumbo of the house. I used to do dumb stupid things. They would send me to get some food, I would drop it on the way. I would lose my money, my hat, my school items. I was
fucking stupid. Someone had to be behind me making sure I'm taking care of my things and myself. My mom used to be worried that I wouldn't be able to hold my own. Then when I started going to college, I had to be independent, and it was scary. However, after commuting to college for couple of days, I made a realization:- I could use Algebriac thinking for everything else. Like when if you look at x^2 + 12x + 36, and you kind of have to keep 12 and 36 both in your head to refactor them, it was kind of the same thing that you need to do to make sure you get on the bus and make sure you don't drop your money. BTW, I don't think this makes sense to anyone besides me. The main thing is that I realized that the kind of mental gymnastics that I do for math doesn't have to stop at math. I could use the math thinking in everything. It was kind of the moment I went from being really dumb to being really smart.. in everything. The crystal formed. I remember that thought creating a physical sensation in my head, but I'm entirely sure that the physical sensation is a made up memory. Another reference to Matrix:- It was like when Neo saw the code behind the matrix, and went from running away from the agents to fighting them back. It was exactly like that. I cracked the code, only I got the power to navigate through life instead of dodging bullets