I am the same way, and I similarly am proud in that I can always fix a bug. It's all just code, and I can always pin-point the error. My impression is that you

I am the same way, and I similarly am proud in that I can always fix a bug. It's all just code, and I can always pin-point the error. My impression is that you and I would go through very much the same process when debugging code. This sub-thread, however, is filled with my points on mental models and confidence, so I won't repeat it here. It's not voodoo thinking, but keeping in mind that mental models may be wrong. I am careful to avoid thinking certain things are "impossible" because I know my reasoning is fallible. I instead say "I find it extremely unlikely, and here's my evidence why." My bug-that-go-away was a race-condition in a lock-free, multithreaded allocator I was porting to the Itanium instruction set. My understanding of the memory model on Itanium wasn't very good, and even the original author of the algorithms was unsure if it could even be ported. I eventually decided it was not a good use of my time, and moved on. (The algorithm was designed on the Power instruction set, and was easy to port to x86.)