Sunday, September 19, 2004

The Inverse Law of Bug Complexity

James Tauber has defined the The Inverse Law of Bug Complexity:
The harder a bug is to track down, the simpler the fix tends to be.
Sounds clever but I think this is self-deception. It just seems like they're simpler to fix when they're harder to find. In general, I find that most bugs are caused by simple errors. With new code, most of the bugs are "low hanging fruit": code just doesn't work properly. These are easy to fix. But as a software system gets more stable, bugs can become harder to isolate and track down. The thing that surprises most new programmers is that a simple bug can be responsible for incredibly complex and erratic behavior. You shake your head and say to yourself: "What the heck is going on here?" And when you finally figure it out, the simplicity of the fix has you shaking your head again. Or slapping your forehead. D'oh!
posted by Bob at 9/19/2004 06:15:00 PM  | | digg | del.icio.us | reddit