> If you ever feel the urge to rush: Don't.
That ought to be printed out in 122 point font and pasted on every wall behind every monitor. Take your time to do it right, that way you don't have to do it 'n' times but only once. A quick fix usually only leads to more trouble down the road.
Re:The Art of Failure (2000)
by fuzzythinker on Saturday August 01, 2009 @10:12PM
(#736969)
It's not that simple. It usually depends on the criticality and severeness of the bug. You have to weight the quick fix (if any) against the consequence of not acting on it NOW and any guesstimates of side effects.
You know you should sit back and reason out what the problem might be (it worked before -- what's gone wrong?) but the rookie reflex is to start coding right away and to slap something -- ANYTHING! -- in that might make things right. That should make the yelling stop!
When that doesn't work, another patch is put in. Then another, and another, corrupting data and making things even worse!
...and so the cascade of 'Hail Mary' programming fixes is put in place until someone finally pulls the plug and yanks the poor, choking programmer aside for a breather.
It's rare for programmers to have a 'do or die' moment and few are prepared for or recognize it when it comes. If you ever feel the urge to rush: Don't.