I just spent the better part of somewhere between 4 and 6 hours figuring out a relatively simple and stupid bug in some code for a pair of STM32s trading a pair of bytes and ACK signals over UART.

NGL I kind of feel like shit about this, and how often things like this happen to me. Is embedded dev actually just like this? Does it get better? Is there some magic trick to not think like a fucking retard? Or is the best course of action about 50g of acetaminophen and a bottle of everclear?

I only do this as a hobby and I'm not that experienced, so I have no real context for whether or not struggling so badly for ridiculous amounts of time on what end up being relatively simple single-line problems is an everybody issue or just a me issue. I've heard plenty of joking about it, but I don't have a clue how much of that is exaggerated for comedic effect.