The best feeling in the world.

[Arcadio]

I just got that feeling. I just fixed a bug I've been trying to deal with for many days. It feels really good. I just wish that the fix doesn't cause side effects..

BTW, the bug is related to the way .NET manages threads. I was getting a "Thread Aborted" exception while working on a client/server program, using asynchronized communication.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Debugging threaded applications may just be the most frustrating thing in the world, I feel your pain. I also feel your sense of accomplishment, although I can't count the number of times I was sure I had fixed all of the bugs in my threaded apps, only to have the thing crash seemingly totally at random. The problem with thread bugs is that they're often not reproducible or deterministic.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I know that feeling. For me it's usually a facepalm moment because it's usually something really stupid that I troubleshooted for days, yet I should of figured it out in minutes.

And yeah threaded apps are very tricky to troubleshoot. The only way to really debug those properly is to almost code in some temp debug engine right in, as a certain process order may only have a VERY slim chance to happen so you need to try to force over and over it to see what happens.

Debug logs help a lot too.

 

[Cogman]

Best feeling in the world? Removing Slugs . Nothing better then seeing an order of magnitude increase from some code changes.

 

[degibson]

I wish you joy of your bug-freedom, OP.

 

[dighn]

I know what you mean. Though I by far prefer fixing the bug soon after finding it

 

[hans007]

i remember when I wrote my first threaded app at work, and didn't really know what i was doing. It was in c++ and apparently the microsoft compiler optimizes away some things and just assumes they are static , and doesn't do it right sometimes. After a week of hating it, a much more senior dev was saying, its possible that boolean is being optmized away, put "volatile" in front of it.

Magic. It was like magic. haha. I learned to not blindly share a higher scope variable without a lock. Or microsoft would decide for me that that variable may never get changed and drive me insane. It wasn't really that good a feeling though, it was more of a "god dammit, why did they make the default like that" anger.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: degibson
I wish you joy of your bug-freedom, OP.

Methinks I smell a Patrick O'Brian fan. Never in life, sir! Freedom from bugs is as who should say, impossible.

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: degibson
I wish you joy of your bug-freedom, OP.

Methinks I smell a Patrick O'Brian fan. Never in life, sir! Freedom from bugs is as who should say, impossible.

Capital sloothing, my dear sir.

 

[KIAman]

Best feeling I get is when pounding code for 8 hours strait then debugging only to find nothing wrong (then return the next day and cut the number of lines in half because of bad coding, heh).

 

[degibson]

For my part, I like the feeling of rewriting and improving a nasty part of the infrastructure -- the work itself is lame, but there is an element of pride from cleaning house.

 

[jalaram]

Good - Fixing a bug
Better - Fixing a bug after dealing with it for a few days
Best - Fixing a bug that others have been hammering on for a few days. Something extra nice about helping your team out and removing a thorn from their sides.

 

[Sahakiel]

Coding is like golf. The most frustrating activity in the world until you finally get it in.

 

[CuriousMike]

When you fix a bug like that,
1) where else might you have an issue like that is in your code-base?
2) what technique did you use to debug it --- can you think of ways to improve the debugging technique? Make the problem happen faster/regularly-lier?
3) what practices can you use in the future to not repeat the mistake?

 

[deveraux]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I know that feeling. For me it's usually a facepalm moment because it's usually something really stupid that I troubleshooted for days, yet I should of figured it out in minutes.

The bolded part is exactly how I feel when I fix a bug. I feel like kicking myself.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I was overcome with joy and humiliation after I discovered a bug was caused by a lack of a single parenthesis in an SQL statement buried in the code of an application. Fortunately, I only wasted about 20 minutes on that one.