Let me rant a moment about the accursed “Heisenbug”

For those who haven’t come in contact with Friar Heisenberg, the uncertainty prinicipal is well described here.

So what does this have to do with a software developer in the Mac world?

In the world of development you write a complex program. It does lots of little, mini activities to accomplish a greater whole. Typically a good program writes a completely error free program on the first attempt. Yeah…right So, okay. we make mistakes and the program is fraught with bugs. However, we have a tool to let us find the bugs. It’s called “Debug Mode.” With this powerful tool the program does all it’s little machinations and also tells the programmer what it’s doing.

Well, tonight I got a heisenbug. I built the program and the f*-er exploded. <tone VOICE=Akroid FILM=Ghostbusters>Real nasty one!</tone>
At the time I didn’t know it was a heisenbug. I figured….”Debug mode” that’s how to do find the problem.
But no! This was a heisenbug. And by looking…I changed its environment. I invoke my debug tool and the error goes away.
Damn, Zut, Merde, Gad Verdamma….F***

So now, I want a “Star Trek” Heisenberg Compensator to point at my code when I’m debugging.

And just to tell some of you how I feel

<tone VOICE=me type=regression>i want a pony.</tone>

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