[karmakaze]

There was a time when I'd read some code and think, that's the way I'd do it, then the variable names look like ones I'd use... and turns out I was reading my own code that wasn't more than a week or two old--I used to do all-nighters in the office at the start of my career. It was pretty cool, some days I'd find code done and it was like having magic helper elves.

[monodeldiablo]

The night my CS final project was due, I went out drinking. I don't recall coming home and I don't recall working on the project. But I do recall getting very, very, very intoxicated.

The next morning, I woke up late in a panic. I was gonna email some excuse to the prof in a last ditch attempt to salvage a decent grade in the class. I ran to my computer desk in the corner and turned on my ginormous CRT monitor to find... the confirmation for my final project in my email inbox! I had somehow scored 100% on the project, despite having no memory of what must have been several hours of intense programming and debugging.

Perusing the code later that morning, I was stunned at how clever, clear, and concise it was. It was, at that time, the best code I had ever written. Were it not for a few telltale grammatical peculiarities, I wouldn't have believed I was its author.

That was the first and last time I ever got blackout drunk, but it made me a firm believer that the Ballmer curve exists.

[TravHatesMe]

As entertaining as your story is, I find it very hard to believe. If you were as drunk as you claim to be, there is no way that you're capable of writing "the best code I had ever written". A high level of intoxication severely impacts your attention span and ability to focus deeply. I speak from experience and I'd wager it would be the same for almost everyone.

If this story actually happened, I'd hazard a guess that someone else wrote that code, not you.