Don't say it's a weird bug, because it makes you look stupid
ยท 6 min read
Often when someone is debugging an issue, you might hear:
- It's a weird bug
- Somehow it throws an error, it's weird
- I followed the README, but weirdly it doesn't work
As if something outside their control misbehaved, they expect someone to help them eliminate the "weirdness". I find that a bit annoying. What does "weird" actually mean?
We think "it's weird" because we feel like we did nothing wrong, and the outcome is not what we intended. We do not understand why something unexpected happened, and our first instinct is to label it as "it's weird". If the system is "weird", then it is no longer our problem.
However, is this true? Should you ever say computers behaved "weirdly"?