This article is inspired by an older blog post. I’ve updated it to reflect modern languages and technologies.
- “It works fine on MY computer. Come and see it in action if you don’t believe me”
- “Who did you login as? Are you an administrator?”
- “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature”
- “That’s weird…”
- “It’s never done that before.”
- “It worked yesterday.”
- “How is that possible?”
- “Have you checked your network connection /settings.” (Especially when the application is too sloooow)
- “You must entered wrong data and crashed it?”
- “There is something funky in your data.”
- “I haven’t touched that part of the code for weeks!”
- “You must have the wrong library version.”
- “It’s just some unlucky coincidence, so don’t bother”
- “I can’t unit test everything!”
- “It’s not my fault. It must be that opensource library I’ve used.”
- “It works, but I didn’t write any unit tests.”
- “Somebody must have changed my code.”
- “Did you check for a virus on your system?”
- “Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel?”
- “You can’t use that version on your operating system.”
- “Why do you want to do it that way?”
- “Where were you when the program blew up?”
- “I’m pretty sure I’ve already fixed that.”
- “Have you restarted your Application Server/DB Server/Machine after upgrading?”
- ”Which version of JRE / JDK / JVM have you installed?”
Feel free to add your own. I’m sure there are plenty!!
Reference: 25 things you’ve said in your career as a software engineer. Admit it! from our JCG partner Papapetrou P. Patroklos at the Only Software matters blog.
