Here’s a pattern I want to outline and possible suggestions on how to fix it.
Sometimes when I’m trying to find the source of the bug, I make incorrect updates. An explanation of what the problem might be pops to mind, and it seems to fit (ex. “oops, this machine is Big Endian, not Little Endian”). Then I work on the bug some more, things still don’t work, and at some point I find the real problem. Today, when I found a bug I was hunting for, I had a moment of, “Oh shit, an hour ago I updated my beliefs about how this machine worked, but that was a bad update because the problem had nothing to do with Endiannes”.
I imagine that there have been plenty of times when I’ve been programming/lifing and I haven’t kept track of updates that were tied to a problem, and never corrected them when I found out what the actual solution was.
Mayhaps I should keep a running list of assumptions and updates I’ve made while I program, and everytime a bug is completely resolved, see how that effects past updates.
Had a similar style bug while programming today. I caught it much faster though I can’t say if that can be attributed to previously identifying this pattern. But did think of the previous big as soon as I made the mental leap to figure out what was wrong this time.
Here’s a pattern I want to outline and possible suggestions on how to fix it.
Sometimes when I’m trying to find the source of the bug, I make incorrect updates. An explanation of what the problem might be pops to mind, and it seems to fit (ex. “oops, this machine is Big Endian, not Little Endian”). Then I work on the bug some more, things still don’t work, and at some point I find the real problem. Today, when I found a bug I was hunting for, I had a moment of, “Oh shit, an hour ago I updated my beliefs about how this machine worked, but that was a bad update because the problem had nothing to do with Endiannes”.
I imagine that there have been plenty of times when I’ve been programming/lifing and I haven’t kept track of updates that were tied to a problem, and never corrected them when I found out what the actual solution was.
Mayhaps I should keep a running list of assumptions and updates I’ve made while I program, and everytime a bug is completely resolved, see how that effects past updates.
Had a similar style bug while programming today. I caught it much faster though I can’t say if that can be attributed to previously identifying this pattern. But did think of the previous big as soon as I made the mental leap to figure out what was wrong this time.