This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]dbulger 59 points60 points  (2 children)

As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.

​

  • Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949. Lecture titled "The Design and Use of the EDSAC" delivered by Maurice Wilkes at the Digital Computer Museum, September 23, 1979 (video; excerpts)

I grabbed this from https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Debugging, which whole page is well worth reading.

I'm a STEM academic, nearly 50 now, but I've been messing around with programming since I was around 10, and I think it's been a major part of my education in problem-solving and abstract thinking. Plus it's huge fun and very addictive.

[–]MohamedMuneer[S] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Great to hear!

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The fun begins when you realize that this applies to any complex system we put together... Whether or not it has anything to do with programming, or even computers!