Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#11

Post by serg_chernata » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:52 PM UTC

Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing code at all, just debugging till it works. :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#12

Post by kyriakos » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:54 PM UTC

debugging the platform so i can get 10 lines of my code to run

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#13

Post by agopaul » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

vbtemp wrote: post #4

I used to spend the vast amount of my time debugging. Fast forward a few years - Experience, good programming habits, and the gratuitous use of assertions. Now I spend a negligible amount of time debugging, and it never ceases to amaze me how frequently things just work the first time. Edit: I guess I want to say that there is one, and only one, bottom line: the relentless, ruthless pursuit of quality . It takes time…

This. And I'd add that the type and complexity of the workload your application sustains is almost proportional to the amount of time spent debugging it

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#14

Post by pbnjay » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

I think it will really depend on the role.

- One project is in active development, and I probably spend about 70-80% of keyboard time coding with 20% debugging.

- A separate project is in maintenance mode, and obviously most of my time on it is debugging as bugs come in. So probably opposite, 70-80% debugging there.

- Sometimes feature extension requests come in, in which case it's probably closer to 50/50 on that project.

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#15

Post by phamilton » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

Debugging tests. It's the worst because the feTure took an hour to add with ita own tests, but a day and a half of debugging how the changes broke other tests.

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#16

Post by democracy » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

40% - coding 50% - unit testing 10% - debugging

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#17

Post by tombh » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

I'm not sure there's much than can be concluded by someone's ratio. I definitely wouldn't assume that someone who spent more time debugging was a "worse" programmer.

There are certainly practices that reduce the amount of debugging, but it's all relative. Personally, the question for me is nearer something like;

> When is the right time to let go of my current approach?

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#18

Post by edw519 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

                Analysis Programming Debugging Overhead
  ------------  -------- ----------- --------- --------
  My Own Stuff    30%       60%         10%       0%
  Others' Code    50%       10%         30%      10%
  Enterprise      10%       10%         10%      70%

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#19

Post by Joeri » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:16 PM UTC

serg_chernata wrote: post #11

Sometimes I feel like I'm not writing code at all, just debugging till it works. :)

Implementing a feature is fixing a missing functionality bug, fixing a bug is completing a feature. There is no real difference between feature dev and debugging, except in how they are perceived.

Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?

#20

Post by pc86 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #18

Analysis Programming Debugging Overhead ------------ -------- ----------- --------- -------- My Own Stuff 30% 60% 10% 0% Others' Code 50% 10% 30% 10% Enterprise 10% 10% 10% 70%

I get your point but my guess is the lack of analysis is only exacerbating the problem on the Enterprise end.