Unfiltered Story #352660

(I’m working on a programming project with my uncle. This morning, he called and gave me a fairly complicated assignment which required me to go through all the code several times, testing it as I went. All the dialog is me talking to myself, unless noted.)

Me (testing part of the code): “OK, I haven’t even changed anything, why is there an error message?” (Several minutes later) “Oh, [Uncle] forgot to create that object.”

(I create the object, verify that it works and go back to my assignment. Ten minutes later:)

Me: “Wait, that class calls that function? I’ve never seen it do that.” (I find the code that was supposed to call the function.) “That’s not running at all! I wonder why?”

(This bug is more complicated and takes me maybe 15 minutes to run down and fix, but I do and verify that the class is now calling the function. Back to my actual job I go. Maybe half an hour later:)

Me: “Wait, why is that form blank? It should have all my data in it.” (A few minutes later:) “Seriously, [Uncle]? If you change something’s name, you have to change its name in all the code that uses it too.”

(I fix the form code and get back to work. By the time I expect him to call me again, around suppertime, I’m only halfway through the assignment he gave me.)

Me: “I hope he’s not mad that I’m not done. Maybe I should have focused more and let him deal with the errors I didn’t create.”

(When he calls me back that night:)

Me: “OK, I’ve done [steps], but I’m not finished. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to do [step] – it’s a lot harder than it sounds. And I kind of got distracted and fixed [bugs].”

Him: “OK… let’s walk through the code. I haven’t looked at it.”

(Because my mom is listening in, I don’t say “Shouldn’t we have done that before I started changing my copy? Or, for that matter, shouldn’t YOU have done that before you started telling me what changes to make?”)

Him: “Let’s see… [function1]… [function2]… yeah, this looks pretty simple. The problems I was worried about are actually pretty unlikely. I don’t think you need to [the ENTIRE assignment he gave me that morning, which is all I’ve intentionally worked on all day, and will probably take half an hour just to undo].”

Me: “Well, I’m glad I got distracted and accidentally did some useful work today, because everything I meant to do is gonna have to go!”