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Experienced programmers usually will continue to think the bug is in their own code unless they can prove otherwise. s/Experienced/Mature/ Because ESR has p

Experienced programmers usually will continue to think the bug is in their own code unless they can prove otherwise. s/Experienced/Mature/ Because ESR has plenty of experience. The kind of reasoning in the OP comes from arrogance and the narcissism of valuing one's self-concept as a competent individual over getting the job done efficiently.

sketerpot 17y ago
If someone other than ESR had written this article, would you have reacted the same way?
- pmjordan 17y ago
  Actually, that's pretty much accurate. I initially didn't even realise this was written by ESR and just assumed the author was very inexperienced. ESR however should know better, though to be honest I don't even know if the guy still writes code. I hate to stoop to ad hominem attacks, but re-reading it knowing that it's him I get the impression this was a petty reaction to some feud with a GCC dev. In any case I'd love to know who the hell is upvoting this "story".
  - kelnos 17y ago
    Yes, when I started reading, my first thought was, "wow, sounds like someone pretty inexperienced." After I noticed it was written by ESR, that changed to, "wow, sounds like someone pretty arrogant." The fact of the matter is that a compiler like gcc is used by thousands (tens of thousands? more?) of people almost daily. Usually you have to be doing some pretty crazy stuff to find a bug in it. Bugs that go away when you turn off optimizations are usually either race-condition or memory-access related.
    - pmjordan 17y ago
      Or uninitialised local variables, which are affected by the difference in register allocation, but really you should be enabling the corresponding warning.
- Estragon 17y ago
  No, unless the author had proven themselves in other contexts to be narcissistic and immature, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt.
  - gonzo 17y ago
    (crickets)
- gonzo 17y ago
  its a simple fact that esr is the author of the article in-question.

sketerpot 17y ago

If someone other than ESR had written this article, would you have reacted the same way?

pmjordan 17y ago
Actually, that's pretty much accurate. I initially didn't even realise this was written by ESR and just assumed the author was very inexperienced. ESR however should know better, though to be honest I don't even know if the guy still writes code. I hate to stoop to ad hominem attacks, but re-reading it knowing that it's him I get the impression this was a petty reaction to some feud with a GCC dev. In any case I'd love to know who the hell is upvoting this "story".
- kelnos 17y ago
  Yes, when I started reading, my first thought was, "wow, sounds like someone pretty inexperienced." After I noticed it was written by ESR, that changed to, "wow, sounds like someone pretty arrogant." The fact of the matter is that a compiler like gcc is used by thousands (tens of thousands? more?) of people almost daily. Usually you have to be doing some pretty crazy stuff to find a bug in it. Bugs that go away when you turn off optimizations are usually either race-condition or memory-access related.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    Or uninitialised local variables, which are affected by the difference in register allocation, but really you should be enabling the corresponding warning.
Estragon 17y ago
No, unless the author had proven themselves in other contexts to be narcissistic and immature, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt.
- gonzo 17y ago
  (crickets)
gonzo 17y ago
its a simple fact that esr is the author of the article in-question.