why restarting your device works to solve problems, but it does (yes, I did look it up, so no need to explain it
I’m now stuck in “I think I know a decent metaphor but you don’t want me to share it” land… but then maybe I’ll just share it for other people. :P
Basically it’s less about how computers work on any technical level, and more about which state they’re in. Imagine you want to walk to your favorite store. If you’re at home, you probably know the way by heart and can navigate there reliably. But now imagine you’ve been up for a while and have been walking around for hours following some semi-random commands from different people. And by following all these unrelated commands, you’ve now ended up doing a handstand on some hill next to a lake on the opposite end of town, where you’ve never been before. It can easily happen now that, from that weird state, going to the store close to your home will not work out and you get stuck somewhere.
Restarting the computer is basically the same as teleporting home. It’s in a well defined, clean, predictable state again, where you know that most of the usual day to day actions can be performed reliably. And the longer it’s running without restart, the more chances it has to, in one way or another, get into a state that makes it fail at certain tasks you want it to do.
I’m now stuck in “I think I know a decent metaphor but you don’t want me to share it” land… but then maybe I’ll just share it for other people. :P
Basically it’s less about how computers work on any technical level, and more about which state they’re in. Imagine you want to walk to your favorite store. If you’re at home, you probably know the way by heart and can navigate there reliably. But now imagine you’ve been up for a while and have been walking around for hours following some semi-random commands from different people. And by following all these unrelated commands, you’ve now ended up doing a handstand on some hill next to a lake on the opposite end of town, where you’ve never been before. It can easily happen now that, from that weird state, going to the store close to your home will not work out and you get stuck somewhere. Restarting the computer is basically the same as teleporting home. It’s in a well defined, clean, predictable state again, where you know that most of the usual day to day actions can be performed reliably. And the longer it’s running without restart, the more chances it has to, in one way or another, get into a state that makes it fail at certain tasks you want it to do.