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"Tracking down bugs" is a previously unsolved problem. It may not be difficult, but it also may require as much creativity as writing something new.
by henrik_w 13y ago
"Tracking down bugs" is a previously unsolved problem. It may not be difficult, but it also may require as much creativity as writing something new.
- ddebernardy 13y ago+1 this. And the same for answering customer support issues. There's no limit to how creative customers can be at breaking everything they touch. Prey tell the focus you need to even begin to imagine what is wrong when they vaguely describe some convoluted behavior.
- mattlutze 13y ago+1 as well. I'd say it can be just as difficult to track down and fix a bug than solve a novel problem. In fact, in many cases it can be harder and require more creativity in how to go about discovering the bug, if we assume that the bug fixer didn't write the code nor design the original solution.
- greenyoda 13y agoI agree that some bugs require a great deal of creativity to track down (maybe even writing a new debugging tool), but in my experience, most bugs are caused by a minor oversight and can be found by straightforward techniques like examining logs, or examining program state in the debugger where a segfault occurs, or running a few experiments to do a "differential diagnosis" (it happens when I do A and B, but not when I do C, so the bug must be here). These are things that I can still do when I don't have the mental energy to synthesize new code designs.