Ask Slashdot: Should Developers Fix Bugs They Cause On Their Own Time? 716
Bizzeh writes "Today my boss came to me with what he thought to be a valid point and analogy. A builder builds a wall. A week later, bricks begin to fall out of the bottom, but he continues to build the wall higher. In most cases, he would have to replace those lower bricks at his own expense and on his own time. Comparatively: A software developer writes a piece of software. When bugs are discovered, the developer is paid to fix them by the employer and on the employer's time. I didn't know how to refute the analogy at the time, but it did make me think: why are bugs in software treated differently in this way?"
developers don't cause bugs, QA does (Score:5, Funny)
Bugs are escapes from the QA process. The QA people can fix them on their own time as the fault is in the QA process not the developer. :)
Re:what if... (Score:5, Funny)
The builder was probably commissioned specifically to build the wall, as well.
The developer was probably commissioned to build something with nebulous requirements like "keeping the Huns out", and this was the only idea his boss could understand to sign off on.
Re:Guarantee (Score:5, Funny)
Tell your boss... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what if... (Score:1, Funny)
To all programmers out there, I'll fix your bugs at 5x the rate you do, for a mere 2x your salary. I specialize in array overruns because you're an idiot, pointer misalignments throwing low-level hardware exceptions because you're an idiot, calculation errors due to incorrect operator precedence and casting at inappropriate stages because you're an idiot, and multithread bugs because you're an idiot.
Re:what if... (Score:4, Funny)
To all programmers out there, I'll fix your bugs at 5x the rate you do, for a mere 2x your salary. I specialize in array overruns because you're an idiot, pointer misalignments throwing low-level hardware exceptions because you're an idiot, calculation errors due to incorrect operator precedence and casting at inappropriate stages because you're an idiot, and multithread bugs because you're an idiot.
Well, I'm an idiot, anyway. None of the sins you listed are commonly committed by me, however. In some cases they're impossible using the language and tools I'm presently using, but in most cases, because I've always been rather paranoid about the low-level stuff since I did a lot of OS internal work where that sort of thing could send an entire company home for the afternoon.
Not to say that I do bug-free work, just am more subtle in my bugs.
However, the last major corporate job I had, didn't want that level of quality and frequently dinged me for it. All they wanted was for me to "Git 'R Dun!"
It's not like they were a major financial institution or anything. Oh wait...
Re:Guarantee (Score:5, Funny)
> An old truck of mine died one day on the highway, leaving a toll booth.
Please send my condolences to the toll booth. The loss of a parent can be devastating.