Bugs: a relation of love and hate

What is your relation with bugs? To be honest, I often wanted to start and finish a project without having to stop and fix bugs. I confess that for me it is a relation of love and hate. However, this relation has changed. Not that I love bugs today, but I've learned a lot of lessons from them.

What can we learn from bugs, from situations where nothing seems to go right? Since we were little, success has always been expected of us. In general, mistakes are commonly associated with an idea of ​​failure, loss and inability to do something competently. This quest for success often leads us to focus on the result and not on the process, which makes us forget how important mistakes can also be for growth.

Of course, getting it right and winning is always more pleasurable than getting frustrated, as it makes us feel good, talented and valued. However, winning all the time is practically impossible. But it's alright!

I recently read the article "7 important lessons about programming that I’ve learned at 17" and would like to share with you an excerpt from:

If you’re programming something and you’re not coming across any bugs, it means you’re learning nothing. Not running into bugs does not mean that you’re somehow a great developer because you’re too smart to make a mistake. It means that you’ve already developed something similar, so many times, that you already know how not to run into the bugs. When you’re solving bugs you are becoming a strong developer. There are endless bugs in development, so the faster you can learn to handle them, the better off you’ll be.

From there, I made a small list of the lessons that bugs have taught me:

• Bugs teach you persistence, you won't easily give up on what you want.

• Some mistakes are a real challenge! So, you will feel motivated to solve them, even if you have to sleep late, dream about codes or even wake up in the middle of the night with a possible solution.

• Making mistakes is part of the learning process and helps you consolidate your knowledge.

• Mistakes make you more confident because you learn to deal with varied situations.

• You learn to ask for help, therefore it helps to improve communication and relation with your work team.

• Mistakes make you progress because they show you how much you still need to learn.

Learning from mistakes is a daily exercise, which involves persistence, humility and courage to face the same problem over and over again. Search for new paths, assess what went wrong. In summary, a new chance to grow and improve. Anyway, allow yourself and learn from your mistakes!