Programmers' excuses when something doesn't work :)

Today I was listening to Radio-T podcast episode 131 and heard about the Top 20 programmers’ excuses (at the 80-minute mark) used when something doesn’t work… I found the original article and decided to translate it. The translation is fairly loose and a little reworked :)

I think every programmer will recognize things they’ve said at some point and still say to this day ;)

Top 20 excuses when something doesn’t work

1. That’s strange….

2. That’s never happened before!

3. It worked yesterday.

4. How is that possible?

5. It’s a hardware problem.

6. What did you do wrong to break it?

7. The problem is with your data, not the program!

8. That can’t be, I haven’t touched that module in ages!

9. You have the wrong version of the program.

10. It’s probably an unfortunate combination of circumstances…

11. I can’t test everything!

12. That can’t be the cause of this.

13. It works, but it’s never been tested.

14. Someone changed my code…
    (That happened a lot when we worked without a version control system :)

15. Have you checked your system for viruses?

16. Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel?
    Sure, it doesn’t work, but isn’t it freaking awesome?
    (Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel?)

17. You can’t use this version on your system.

18. Why did you click that?

19. What did you do to make the program crash?

1. But it works on my machine!

Here are a few more for good measure

1. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

2. It’s your Windows acting up!
   (Or some other software—the important thing is to shift the blame)

3. Try restarting your computer or reinstalling Windows.