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I feel shame over bugs. Of course, it depends on the nature of the bug, but there are definite moments of deep self reflection, which I think that I internalize
by mdkess 14y ago
I feel shame over bugs. Of course, it depends on the nature of the bug, but there are definite moments of deep self reflection, which I think that I internalize as shame. While I reflect and move on, as a professional, I should be making as few mistakes as possible. When a star hockey player screws up a play that could have won their team the game, I imagine that they feel shame - not that they will get fired for the incident, but self relection is how you improve, and in many people, that manifests as a healthy amount of shame. (Not that I'm the Gretzky of software development).
Recently, a piece of code that I wrote crashed after running for over a month because I forgot to lock one of several methods that was concurrently accessing a collection. I was very ashamed of this - this was an amateur mistake, and one that someone with the amount of experience that I had should not have made. I didn't get any any trouble for this, but I was pretty ashamed. "I am better than this, and I should not be making this sort of mistake," I thought and have been very careful to avoid this sort of thing since.
- damoncali 14y agoI'm not dogging people who feel bad over bugs, I just don't feel that way myself. I've never written a bug-free piece of software, so I just accept that bugs are part of the deal. When I screw up, I just fix it. On the bad ones, I feel a tinge of regret (as in "oops, my bad. Let me help correct that.") if I inconvenienced anyone else, but nothing I would call shame (which to me implies internalizing negative emotions about one's self). I don't write perfect software, and I never will. I'm choosing to not feel bad about that. It's all matter of perspective and expectations, isn't it? My colleagues can think less of me if they like - that's their baggage, though, and I won't pick it up. Shame is dangerous, and leads to a lot of the communications errors that developers make, which are often worse than the bug itself, or even the cause of it.