Why Fixing a Production Bug Is Harder Than Writing the Code (opens in new tab)

The Blank Canvas Problem When you write new code, you get to define the problem. You choose the data structures, the assumptions, the failure modes you care about. The context lives entirely in your head, fresh and complete. You know what you intended. You know what inputs you tested. You know which edge cases you decided weren’t worth handling. Debugging a production bug strips all of that away. You’re working backward from a symptom to a cause across a system you may not have written, in a ...