The Original Folk Tale

Moved from the LawOfDemos:

This sort of thing always reminds me of one of the examples in ProgrammingPearls. Please feel free to correct this anecdote. My recollections are somewhat hazy, having foolishly lent my copy out a few years ago...

--FrankCarver

OK Frank, here's a corrected version ... this is one of my favorite stories of HeroicDebugging. --GlennVanderburg

A seasoned programmer (I'll refer to him as "the old-timer") is wandering through the office when he notices a small crowd around a desk. Curious, he strolls over and hears this incredible story: the person who sits at the desk can successfully log on to his computer while he's sitting down, but when he stands up, login fails! Nobody can figure out what's going on.

The old-timer asks everybody to stop advancing wild theories for a minute, and he asks the person being plagued by the bug to try logging on twice, once sitting, once standing, while the old-timer watches carefully. The old-timer notices something crucial: when sitting, with his arms and hands in the comfortable, familiar position, the user is a touch-typist. But when standing, the awkwardness and unfamiliarity of the position makes him revert to looking at the keycaps. Close inspection revealed that two keycaps were transposed, fooling him into typing the wrong password while standing.

Unfortunately, the original version no longer has much to do with the LawOfDemos. --glenn

Which is why I moved it here. Both versions are worth preserving. We're dealing with folk tales, which always vary in the telling, depending on the context. And because I know that Glenn, Frank (or anon) will forgive me or refactor this if they disagree.

There's an interesting DontIncludeRefactoringInstructions? or DontObeyRefactoringInstructions? pattern to think about here too.

--RichardDrake

CategoryStory