I find myself spending most of my time debugging older code, and I'm curious as to how other people's time is split at work, between developing new code, extending existing code, and maintaining existing code.
Anyone care to share?
Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
1–10 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#2Not employed. As a hobby programmer I spend more time debugging. The larger the project the more debugging.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#3I wonder if there is a study about the percentage of time spent debugging as you become more experienced.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#4I 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 to develop the good habits and watch for the pitfalls, but once you're there you develop your software products in a quarter as much time, with one tenth the stress, and everyone on your team feels proud of themselves and each other. Then with your free time you can focus on what's really important - your business and your life
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#5I think a lot of debugging activities end up laying the framework for new features, so it's unclear how to separate the two.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#6debugging. esp. not my code.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#7Between developing, extending and maintaining code, I'd say about 20%, 60%, 20%.
That said, I'd say only about one-third of my time is spent on code. I spend significantly more of my time doing operations work and having meetings.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#8Lot of planning then Coding and Debugging - theres a lot of refinement going on during the debugging process. So I cant call it just debugging.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
#9Roughly equal, probably debugging takes more time (or at least it feels that way!).
Usually can get through a chunk of code no problems but when that 1 inevitable bug arises it will take up a lot of time through trial and error, stack overflow and just generally googling to find a solution.
Re: Ask HN: Do you spend more time coding or debugging?
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