Hacker News Reader

Truly. The story reminds me of all the times I've coded and stumble upon a bug that simply shouldn't happen because it defies logic. It usually takes a nap or re-write to realize the impossible bug was a minor typo.

View on HN

The worst are when you spot a bug that means the functionality should never have worked in the first place, yet somehow has been working fine in production for years. I really rather hate those ones.

"Hate" isn't even a strong enough word for how I feel when that happens. The cognitive dissonance is so strong and discomforting that I don't even have a word for it. I mean, there you are, looking at a bit of code that absolutely, totally, could not possibly work, and yet you know that it has been working. When I encounter that, I suspect I feel something like what the characters in H.P. Lovecraft stories[1] feel when they come face to face with some terrible, grotesque, eldritch being that could not possibly exist.

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos

Whenever this happens I am tempted to "debug" the non-problem but I know it would be a waste of time to find out why something worked. Drives me crazy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com