All means are fair except solving the problem
2 days ago
- #system-reliability
- #software-development
- #error-handling
- An industry veteran's code printed warnings upon misuse, causing critical workflows to fail because scripts expected a specific 'yay, done' message as the last output.
- Warnings from destructors printed after 'yay, done' caused scripts to incorrectly interpret the program as failing, leading to workflow disruptions.
- Instead of fixing the reported misuse, teams argued it was hard to identify all warning sources and that fixes across multiple teams would be slow, risking further failures.
- Suggestions included reprinting 'yay, done' after warnings during destruction, suppressing warnings by default, or redirecting warnings to a separate file.
- The veteran lamented that all suggested solutions avoided directly addressing the underlying problem of misuse in the code.