Job opening: kernel bug manager [LWN.net]

Job opening: kernel bug manager

Posted May 1, 2007 17:44 UTC (Tue) by tuxchick (guest, #42009)
In reply to: Job opening: kernel bug manager by xma
Parent article: Job opening: kernel bug manager

Why would any programmer be satisfied with releasing buggy code? I don't
understand this attitude, and it seems to be very common. What's the
point? Anyone can write bad code, right? Isn't it the mark of a skilled
professional to turn out something that is good and works right? In every
other profession it's standard procedure to have quality control and fix
problems. Writers revise; electricians don't leave wires sparking and
appliances shorting; when the kid who mows your lawn misses a spot, you
make him come back and finish it. Why do programmers think they are exempt
from basic quality control?

(Log in to post comments)

Reasons to ignore bugs

Posted May 1, 2007 18:51 UTC (Tue) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]

A programmer might ignore bugs because:

It works for him. He doesn't care about some guy with a broken ACPI table or IPv6. Not his problem and he's working for free anyway.

The code knowingly ignores some complex problems in order to get something out that mostly works most of the time for most people. Better than nothing!

Programmer exhaustion. He can't reproduce the bug on his equipment, he can't find the bug by code inspection, and the two people with the bug won't run his software with enough logging to find the bug because of the 50% performance degradation and 1 TB log files it requires.

Reasons to ignore bugs

Posted May 2, 2007 18:49 UTC (Wed) by tuxchick (guest, #42009) [Link]

OK, I can understand those reasons. But none of them apply to the OP's
comments. What's the point of doing anything if you never want to progress
beyond a rough first draft? 'Dare to be shoddy'??

Reasons to ignore bugs

Posted May 3, 2007 8:25 UTC (Thu) by dark (✭ supporter ✭, #8483) [Link]

Well, people enjoy different aspects of programming. For you it's probably the satisfaction of making something that works well. For xma it might be the thrill of tackling hard problems, with a corresponding lack of interest in polishing the solutions afterward. Or it might just be the joy of making things that move.

I happen to enjoy tracking down and fixing bugs, but on the other hand, when I write new code I go very slowly because I want to make sure it's perfect. I'd probably work well in a team with xma :)

To people who are in it for the hard problems, I'd say that bugs are a sign that you didn't get the solution exactly right, and sometimes the 100% solution is ten times as hard as the 99% solution. As an example, you can see that clearly in the efforts to make a kernel scheduler that works well in all cases.