Yesterday evening, my nephew was debugging some software he wrote. And I felt a rush of adrenaline I remember very well from my time as a developer.
One of the things I loved more about writing code was fixing bugs. Anytime a program was not working, I was excited. It was like going out on a treasure hunt. You have to find the origin of the problem that often was hiding in the most unexpected places. And then, you have to find a solution that doesn't break the integrity of the whole. Fixing bugs was such a rewarding task.
Funny enough, one of the things that I found most annoying about writing software was when something worked, and I didn't know why. Even worst when it worked but if it wasn't supposed to. That was a nightmare because you couldn't touch anything for fear of breaking it. With a bug or an anomaly, you have a starting point to begin the quest.
But when it works, where do you start if you want to find out why?
Tolstoy opened his famous novel Anna Karenina by saying that "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
There are infinite factors that contribute to the success of anything, from software to a relationship. If any of those factors don't work, we may be able to find the problem and fix it. But we can never say with certainty what makes something work.
We can guess and maybe collect some statistics to support our guess, but we can't be sure.
That's why we should always be wary of foolproof recipes for success or happiness.
P.S. I could have used an image with some lines of code, but it's overused. Plus, those bugs are way more colourful and artistic.