Ask HN: How worried do you get over bugs in your code? Is this a mental health issue?

[amichail]

Just how worried do you get? And what do you do to try to alleviate your worries? Does it work?

Obviously extensive testing, static typing, code review, and revision control help, but that doesn't mean that your worries are sufficiently low in practice.

I wonder if there's a mental health issue to be studied here with potential solutions specific to software developers.

[jmtame]

Might want to stick "Ask HN: " in front of the title. I thought this was an article at first, hesitated to click.

http://paulgraham.com/start.html

What it means specifically depends on the job: a salesperson who just won't take no for an answer; a hacker who will stay up till 4:00 AM rather than go to bed leaving code with a bug in it; a PR person who will cold-call New York Times reporters on their cell phones; a graphic designer who feels physical pain when something is two millimeters out of place.

[ryanmnly → jmtame]

So you are asking if there is a correlation between mental health and worries about bugs in your code? Given the fact that coding leads to watching the sun rise from your desk chair, the hope that this particular algorithm saves the world, and a disturbing reliance on Totino's pizza rolls as sustenance, I would say yes, the connection between mental health and code is not a coincidence.

[cubicle67]

Do you mean worry that there may be major bugs that you aren't aware of, or worry over bugs you know about but haven't fixed yet (for whatever reason)?

[amichail → cubicle67]

The former.

[redleader]

Isn't worrying about bugs just a more narrow version of worrying about making mistakes?

[amichail → redleader]

But in code, the smallest of mistakes can introduce major flaws into your product.