digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work

underthesunz.blogspot.com — The title said it all, no need to continue with description.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • leapius, on 10/12/2007, -43/+9omg that strikes a chord with me (as I'm a programmer) - SO spot on!
  • Anthet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+60Hillarious, every programmer will more then likely recognize themselfs in one of the posts.
    • nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36In just one? Maybe my code is too buggy... ;-)
    • compu73rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Agreed. I think I'm guilty of at least half haha. :)
    • cwmonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@Anthet:

      I imagine one you'd use is "Oh, I must have spelled that wrong."
    • awasson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Hmmmm, that's wierd"
    • AhmedB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Hmmmm, that's strange, it should work".
      "I tried it really quickly on my machine and it worked fine, what version do you have"
      "give me a test case"
  • Tanpreet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15this brings back memories of what i say to my computer science teacher
    • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2Then it is not blogspam it is plagiarization
  • Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -36/+126To bypass the blatant blogspam for everyone else :
    20. "That's weird..."
    19. "It's never done that before."
    18. "It worked yesterday."
    17. "How is that possible?"
    16. "It must be a hardware problem."
    15. "What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
    14. "There is something funky in your data."
    13. "I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
    12. "You must have the wrong version."
    11. "It's just some unlucky coincidence."
    10. "I can't test everything!"
    9. "THIS can't be the source of THAT."
    8. "It works, but it hasn't been tested."
    7. "Somebody must have changed my code."
    6. "Did you check for a virus on your system?"
    5. "Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
    4. "You can't use that version on your system."
    3. "Why do you want to do it that way?"
    2. "Where were you when the program blew up?"
    1. "It works on my machine"
  • bennyboy371, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Number one is so true...
    • AdamTReineke, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I've used that one the most.
    • rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I've probably used half of those. FWIW, we do have hardware problems a lot (my software interfaces with prototype hardware). The "works on my machine" is my favorite. My computer is my testbench. If my program doesn't work at your location, clearly you need to just mirror my hard drive :)
    • willcode4beer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8yea, but no 2 should be, "that's not in the requirements"
  • jackminardi, on 10/12/2007, -47/+4This is the stupidest list I have ever seen.
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -13/+21your face is the stupidest face i've ever seen........

      Sorry i couldn't resist, Digg me down if you want
    • jackminardi, on 10/12/2007, -23/+2youve never seen my face, so how would you know that?
  • SonicRush, on 10/12/2007, -2/+383. "Why do you want to do it that way?"

    Probably the AOL support line motto
  • pedmond, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Oh yes, I've heard them all!
  • Moopy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16The list should be in reverse, 2-20 and then 1.
  • 450RMan, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6As a lead tester for over 6 years my favorite was always, "It's a feature!".
    After reading this list I thank god I don't deal with those clowns anymore.
    • blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12Testers are the real clowns.
    • PolyVector, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Not everyone can be as skilled as a... tester...
      I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth.

      As I was saying... I've been driving for years and those assclowns who design hybrid engines are like sooooo totally dumb.
    • iainc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3We try to write programs so that even idiots can use them. We give them to testers first to see if we have done our job.
  • mikefitz2, on 10/12/2007, -26/+3blogspam and undescriptive title! oh boy!
    • spaceblink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26How could the title be any MORE descriptive?
  • Loony, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I've definitely heard a few of them...
  • SeBBBe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3420. "That's weird..."

    ROFL!!! That one should be number one. If I'd gotten a cent every time I said that :-P
    • nesquik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Agreed, personally I start with 20 then follow it with 1 through 19.
    • grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maybe not 1 - (I think I used '1' this morning already). But at 20??? I mean top 5 at least, way more likely than blaming a virus. I would put it at 2.
  • TellusCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3LoL, ya missed my all time fav:

    "That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
  • 10poundbrown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13programming is for the Gods, QA is for people who can't program.
    • meanfish, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Many people in QA were never given any sort of chance to be a programmer professionally. It's not right to short change them in that regard. The last thing a programmer will do is acknowledge just how lucky they are to have been given a chance.
    • madeingermany, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5While your post is surely funny, if programmers were gods, you wouldn't need QA.
      To my experience, programmers that test their own code suck at it.

      Of course nobody studies CS thinking, man I'm going to be the god of QA.
      But to automated testing of complex software, you need more then just a failed programmer.

    • cfchris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0meanfish,
      I'll acknowledge how lucky I am. I'm a programmer for a web-based CRM for auto dealers. It's the best job I ever had. I'm a lucky SOB!
      I thank God for the opportunity frequently.
  • rytr23, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Its funny cause its true.. Especially #1.. Unless your title has Jr in it, that should never come out of your mouth..Even then you should be mocked openly..
  • inobla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yes as a hardware guy who works with a lot of software engineers and programmers I'd have to say this list is definitely right on!! Of course, sometimes my hardware *is* messed up...but the initial response I get is usually damn close to the ones listed. :-)
  • bigteebo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3The 2nd worst one I kept hearing(in years of QA) was "It doesn't happen in debug mode.". What I'd want to reply was "Good, you narrowed down half the possibilities."

    The absolute worst one was "When did this start happening?" from a not-too-smart programmer. Uh, it started happening when I fist found it. I'm not going to go back daily build after daily build to find out when it started, only to have the bug in question get deferred.
    • blapierre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13That's your job though.
    • Canthiar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Testing shouldn't be an "us" against "them". If a programmer needs to know when a problem started happening it helps him or her narrow down what might be the cause of the problem.

      The best testers that I've ever worked with are the ones that are patient and willing to help reproduce a problem or to help narrow it down. If the tester only has an interest in finding the bugs and doesn't really care about fixing them it makes life harder on the programmers.
    • joshguy1425, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Having an idea of when the bug appeared is *immensely* helpful...

      @bigteebo
      Attitudes like yours are what cause buggy software. :P
    • ryos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I find half the list funny. But the other half says to me the person who posted the article is a typical black box tester who refuses to understand the developer perspective. Of course we can't blame the person since s/he's probably doing the s**t work all day long... or maybe the guy moved on and just bitter about the past. In either case s/he lives on without understanding why some of those questions are actually important...

      Sorry. No digg.
    • JoeMerchant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Totally agree with blapierre - finding when the bug appeared should be simple enough - even if it was 250 builds ago, a binary search should find it within 10 tries or less. Then you could diff the code and maybe identify the offending change - unless you really plan to be a tester for the rest of your life.

      Nothing bothers me more than testers or coder/programmer/developers who say "I don't know how that works, it's somebody else's code." Of course it's harder to understand other people's code, but it all belongs to the company, and some day the guy who wrote it won't be here anymore - do you want all the code he wrote to become worthless when he leaves?

      If you're just in it for a paycheck, don't apply to my department - people like you can drain more value than you add.
  • TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Shouldn't "We have known about this bug and are currently working to fix it." be on the list? :P
    • Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30or "its fixed in cvs" ?
    • AhmedB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Or "I know exactly what's causing this, let me fix it in a minute"
  • salsaman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3it hurts to hear them all together like that... but... [sniffle] i'm so glad i'm not alone!

    another one:
    "hmmm... i'm not sure i understand-- i don't really use the program"
  • headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"What did you do?" (i.e. are you just stupid or something?)
    • stevebosman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I find myself asking "what did you do?" a lot to testers. I encounter too many testers who are capable of telling me that a bug has occurred, but are seemingly incapable of logging the steps necessary to reproduce the problem. Programmers should understand what they have done and so should testers.
  • jacenat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"5. Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?"
    is by far the best :)
    • babayada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That might not actually be as stupid as it looks at first glance.

      If a programmer is creating a user interface with function stubs (so pushing buttons don't do everything they are supposed to do, like rip an mp3 or whatever) to just get the look and feel of the program down, it's a valid, intelligent question.
  • Tyr86, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5
    "It must be user error."

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/59fe/
    • SpazticChips, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11lol, your avatar is the backwards of mine...
    • Tyr86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No! YOUR avatar is the backwards of mine!
  • Eugenia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Funny, thanks. The No1 is indeed very common.
  • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4what ever happened to "You must be doing it wrong, lemme try" ?
  • TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How about "Why aren't you logged in as the test user?" Or "I was just trying to give you an idea of what it might look like if it DID work". Or "That only happens when you're trying to make a new account". Or "I spoke with the client and pushed back on that feature yesterday, it just hasn't been deleted from the spec yet".

    hahahhaha I do so very much love my job
    • VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"it just hasn't been deleted from the spec yet."

      I frequently find myself saying "that wasn't in the spec yesterday" as well. I hate Product Managers.
  • babayada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6This reminds me of all the crap other programmers will say when you ask for help on a given programming issue. If they don't know the answer, they'll bend over backwards to prevent their lack of knowledge on the issue from being exposed... even if its something that you wouldn't necessarily expect them to know and there is no shame in not knowing it.

    You ask, "I want to do x using y. Is there a way I can do it?" Instead of getting a clear answer like, "Yes, here's how..." or "No, to the best of my knowledge you can't, and here's why..." or even "I have no idea," you get: "Why on earth would you want to do that?" or "That's stupid." or "That library/api/method is for this and this, not that" or "You shouldn't even be using library/api/function/whatever, it ***** sucks."

    • TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Q: "I want to do x using y. Is there a way I can do it?"
      Me: "Yes"
      Q: "How?"
      Me: "Do you have a billing code for the hour it will take me to explain it to you?"
      Q: "Okay, how much would it cost?"
      Me: "I have no idea."
      Q: "Okay, but it's possible, right?"
      Me: "Yes, theoretically."
      Q: "So what should I tell the client?"
      Me: "Tell them that given the theoretical concept of unlimited time and resources, anything is possible."
      Q: "Why do you endlessly ***** with me?"
      Me: "That was my next question for you. If you want a change order or a bid, bring it to me in writing. Don't lean on my desk for an hour and then bitch because I didn't have time to get my work done."
    • babayada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Trouble,

      I totally understand that situation. If that is your situation, then I feel for you.

      I was speaking about a context in which time really wasn't money, and I wasn't pulling people away from their projects.

      For instance, in the time and with the effort it took you to write your reply, someone could have given an answer that would provide me in my hypothetical situation with a direction I could pursue on my own.

      Asking for help is not always asking for someone else to do all the work, rather perhaps a web link or some other form a direction, for which I would be thankful and then go on my merry way.
    • TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Agreed and no offense intended. There are project managers I work with that I will spend hours with, brainstorming ways to make clients happy. I have spent whole weekends writing up documents for marketing people to use to close deals. Working with professionals is wonderful.

      But for every pro, there are four guys that believe implementation is trivial on the front side, writing checks with their mouths that I have to cash at the keyboard. And there are also two testers who double the length of the dev cycle. One of those guys measures his importance by how many tickets he opens in Bugzilla. He will take a bug, break it into eight bugs, and file tickets on every one of them. The other guy never reads anything and files bugs based on his imagined spec of how things should work that have no basis in the requirements docs.

      Bring on the pros. This is web two point oh, right? That means we should be twice as effing smart by now.
  • VTmruhlin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The number 1 question asked by testers at my work is "How do I test this?"
    Thats YOUR job.
    • flipmeat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You're hiring the wrong people. You ask them how they would test it, during the interview.

      The classical 'test a toaster' or 'test a vending machine' questions work well for establishing knowledge of the process. If they are filling up a whiteboard and you have to go 'Whoa pardner, we get the idea', hire him/her.
  • fooslayer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Okay, funny list and stuff, but the real situation in my experience is that a programmer will often say one of the things on the list there as an attempt to start mentally narrowing down where the problem lies. If it works on his machine, why is him pointing that out seen as stupid/comical? Clearly he thinks there's something different between your machine and his. This shouldn't imply blame - just a fact that should be investigated.

    Debugging is the art of finding differences between the configuration that works and the one that doesn't. Most of the replies on the list are off-the-cuff attempts to narrow down where the problem might be. If you take it personally as a tester, then you're an idiot. If you as a programmer honestly believe that giving a glib response gets you off the hook, then you're an idiot.
  • Aliarse, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Its funny because its true.
    • nesquik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Any other insight you want to spoil us with, Nostradamus?
  • secretivecoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think i've used a few of them during sex...
    • Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?"
  • Snuffub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7On the flip side here are a couple things I've heard from my tester.

    1. "I swear it happens every time you're not looking at it."
    2. "No I wasnt running it under a kernel debugger while testing. You need that?"

    And here's a dev's response to the list.

    16. "It must be a hardware problem."
    Sometimes it is a hardware problem. Bad ram can cause false NX bit failures.
    15. "What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
    you mean the tester didnt include what he did to create the crash? that's pretty ***** testing.

    14. "There is something funky in your data."
    if the tester manually corrupts the program's data a graceful failure isnt a bug. the whole idea behind bug checking is if a system gets in a state that it doesnt recognize it should shutdown gracefully rather than doing something that could cause more harm.

    13. "I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
    12. "You must have the wrong version."
    I've had testers forget to copy testing binaries onto their machine then promptly report that the fix didnt actually address the problem.

    9. "THIS can't be the source of THAT."
    Sometimes a tester has to realize that they've found a new bug. if I test a change which flips two bits to change the background color, and during the test the tester finds some input which breaks some string parsing he's got to make a judgement call on whether it's related to the change or whether it's a whole new bug.

    6. "Did you check for a virus on your system?"
    I've never seen this myself but a hang can be caused by a deadlock due to some out of control program. If the system hangs a tester shouldnt tell the dev "it hung" they should do some initial investigation to say "it hung because it was waiting for the loader lock while program X was holding it.

    2. "Where were you when the program blew up?"
    Again. If the tester doesnt have all the information about how he got the program to blow up then he's not doing his job.

    • kaffiene, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Quite. I think anyone who thinks these are all programmer dodges hasn't actually done any work with a tester before - most of these answers/observations *could* be quite reasonable depending on the context.

      For what it's worth, I appreciate good testers. I'm quite convinced that some of them have an aura of destruction about them which causes software to break cause it all sure runs fine for me ;o)
    • TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ha, definitely. I have a macro that types UNABLE TO REPLICATE and closes tickets. How many tickets have tester versions of the 20 dev statements? Things like the I swear it only does it when you're not looking at it.
  • thestorey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2but it displayed correclty in firefox you noob!
  • marzim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I usually used the number 1 statement. :
  • darkomen123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2this is old, I've seen it on other sites, even before digg.
  • SteelyDuran, on 10/12/2007, -2/+421. "I guess it's finally ready for release, Mr. Ballmer!"
  • kaffiene, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I don't know that's funny - half of those responses are perfectly reasonable. It might work on my machine (that doesn't fix the issue, but it's an important observation). You *might* have the wrong version - I worked for a company with several products all of which had branches for different customers on different hardware through various different releases - it was very easy for someone to be testing the wrong version.

    Sorry, this seems pretty lame to me.
  • au071, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Really true, at least number 1 is the one I used most:)
  • Mnemonicman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I must have used those many times in college.
  • inkubux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3so true I use theses all the time. but my favorite is:

    It works in firefox..
  • Dotnetsky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You forgot to Mormalize your Space.
  • acousticiris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow...That's really sad. I can actually see myself typing "That's weird..." into an IM window. It's probably the first response from someone's query about why such and such isn't working.
    It's usually "weird" because the individual in question is finding a bug in code that was put in 6-9 months ago.
    Often it's some browser/configuration/desktop issue, but also a little too often it's a legitimate problem that only that user was willing to let me know about.
    Users are so weird.
  • nikoniko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3At the tender age of 14, I landed a job as a beta tester for a now-prominent game developer. Whenever I turned in a new bug report the programmers would tell me, "Go f*ck yourself!" Guess that must've been #21.
  • iOsiris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1When it works on my machine, its good neough
  • EdgarVerona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't see the problem with a lot of these. Some are understandable first reactions (even #1, the "It works on my computer".

    The mark of a good programmer is someone who, though they may make any amount of comments at first, will not leave it at that. Explaining your surprise at the bug appearing is human nature. It'd only if it's left at that surprise/denial that it turns into a bad thing.
  • slorocks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't repo it on any of my machines, can you mail me your machine and I'll see if I can repo it. Then the other one, After I installed the debugger I can't get it to repo.
  • elijahalcantara, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's IE's fault.
  • callingshotgun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Having been on both sides of that conversation, I can tell you guys that the programmer isn't always unjustified saying some of those. But the tester is almost always justified in raising an eyebrow.
  • magamiako, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've used 20 and 1 the absolute most, usually together. I've written quite a few programs, but I wouldn't consider myself a programmer (just something I have picked up on as necessity for using computers, because, face it, if you know how to use computers--you're expected to know programming to some degree by anyone who doesn't know how to use computers).

    "That's weird, it works for me."
    "Hmm...interesting...works on my machine."

    But this usually sparks me to go and review the code and figure out where it was happening. Also, I had written the lot of it using different versions of required libraries and so a bug usually wasn't found until I encountered someone using different versions. Depending on the project, I would either ask them to upgrade or modify the code to make it "backwards compatible".
  • JeffP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i will be printing this out and taping this to the desk of all of my coders at work...

    ...not because i don't want them to use them, i think they need a handy reference ...
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 61 of 61 discussions
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.