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TALES OF A CODING FACTORY | SHORTS
Leave The Bug Alone
Sometimes it’s the best option
Seriously. Leave the bug alone. If two more will be created by fixing this thing, it’s better to leave it as is. <insert “change my mind” meme here>
But no. At the coding factory, resolving bugs and creating more was constant. It seemed the software developers felt pleasure in doing so. And to be precise, when I say “the software developers”, I include myself big time.
Days and weeks would go by without delivering the application. The budget was running out.
The. Pressure. Was. ON.
A “light bulb moment”
One day at the office, at around 8 pm. I was already packing my stuff to go home (finally). There was a meeting to discuss the pending errors and decide the subsequent actions.
One of the engineers had this “brilliant idea” (imagine the sound of clearing my throat). He went to the middle of the coding factory and shouted,
— The time is now, guys. It’s now or never.
Everyone looked at him, not all clear of what he was talking about. But suspecting.
The developer continued,
— We will finish everything pending today. We only leave this room after solving all the bugs and testing the application thoroughly.
The watershed moment — before was stressful; now it’s hell.
As you imagine, this plan didn’t work at all. We repeated, “The time is now, guys. it’s now or never” every f***ing night for days, weeks and months — that’s right, MONTHS.
We used to work until our eyes were in flames. Until our brains were fried and we couldn’t tell For loops from IF statements.
Can you imagine what this means?
If before we would create two bugs after fixing one, now ten more, *severe* ones, would appear instead.
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