Bugs. Don't you hate 'em? Pesky typos, documentation mis-reading, late-night algorithm confusion...

The ones I hate most of all though are all those bugs in perl (or Linux, or Windows, or MySQL). You know the ones. When you've tried everything to get your code to work, but to no avail. You know *your* code is right - heck - you were there when you wrote it - it's not like the other guy has messed up *your* source...so it must be a problem with the OS/language/DBMS/CPAN module/Sunspot-activity/whatever.

Having recently attempted to show a fellow monk this was *not* the case, it reminded me of (a) just how long it took for me to learn that it was almost always my code that had the problem, and (b) how many times I'd tried to teach others what I'd learnt.

Fair enough - there *are* bugs in just about every OS/DMBS/etc. you could point to...most of them well documented, or so obscure that the chance of you hitting them is minute. (Occasionally, in earlier times, these could even be a 'feature'...C64 sprites-in-the-border sprint to mind) What many programmers forget though is that the baseline code they're sitting on top of has probably been run billions of times before without a problem, while *their* code hasn't.

I suspect it's a rites-of-passage thing. After $x years learning to perform the task, it takes $y years to learn that $x was just the beginning, and it then takes $z years... etc. (I was going to attempt some contrived '$x += $y' recursive thing, but you get the idea <g>). My favourite definition of 'getting old' is 'stopping wanting to learn' - I hope never to get old myself, but unfortunately I know some people who got old at 14.

Most mystical tradition teaches that ego-loss is a precursor to illumination, and a certain degree of this is always necessary in order to grow, as a programmer or otherwise. It's always hard to admit that one makes mistakes, but until you get into the habit of looking on your own doorstep first, it'll take a lot longer to find them.

Ben - ever an initiate, regardless of XP :)

In reply to It's your code... by benn

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