alt Hacker NewsNo. My argument is valid if you have deadlines and your resources are not infinite. Either you were the only one reporting bugs at which point of course you could fix the as you found them because they were always in your work context or you had no deadlines and could afford to switch context without the inefficiency of it affecting anything.
In most situations you have users who also find bugs and report them when they want, not when you are ready for them.
You can even see that your argument does not apply generally by the fact that bugs exist in software for years. If your way was both more efficient AND more aligned with human nature then everyone would be working like this but clearly almost nobody can afford to drop everything to fix a user’s random low priority bug the minute it is reported.
Well, we clearly come from very different work methodologies.
You have deadlines, velocity is a goal rather than a measurement, and probably several other (IMHO) process mistakes. In such systems, doing what is best for the organization can often be bad for your personal career. Still, that's probably the norm in much of the industry.
My view is that having bugs is costly. They cause problems in development, and alienates users. A bug free code base is an incredible asset to have!
You say it's inefficient to "switch context" and fix a bug the moment you find it. There is some truth there, but... (1) there are ways to work without huge context load, (2) I don't have to fix the bug that very minute. Usually, I make a note and get to it the next day or so. Also (3) the average bug fix in a well structured and tested code base is usually pretty quick.
> If your way was both more efficient AND more aligned with human nature then everyone would be working like this
This assumes the software industry is really well organized. After 40 years experience writing software, that is just hilarious! Though I probably also thought that before I got involved with much better organizations.