Ever wonder what life is “really” like for developers?
A Text Tale. My Worst Bug in 40 Years
A debugging tale of blind alleys, despair, and the power of stubbornly just keeping playing with something until you notice a vital clue.
Touchgram got stalled for an embarrassing, almost three full months, in 2020.
With one bug.
I’ve been a developer for nearly 40 years and seen some horrible code. I’ve even written some of it. As I’ve tweeted recently, I don’t tend to write simple bugs any more. I’ve built good instincts, practices and enjoy working in a robust language (Swift), with a moderately healthy testing regime.
But I still got stuck.
It took until the end of 2021 for v1.3 to finally make its way to the store. I wrote this story a year ago but was not willing to publish it until I could prove I had a shipping version.
Here’s the bug, in all its horror.
Touchgram v1.3 introduced a new feature, allowing you to position text over the top of the background picture.
It is the start of building up interactive greeting cards or Touch Memes.
