My Mistake (Looking Back)

My Mistake !    -why are these two words so hard to say?

All programmers, when they fix a bug, are implicitly saying exactly that.
And the process of building a piece of software involves the constant fixing of bugs. When I write a piece of code, I write it knowing it has bugs. The first time I use it, I notice things I didn't see when I was visualising the software before it existed.

I remember the first time Wolfgang tried out one of the first versions of Pers-Info DOS I had written in 1982, lots and lots of errors! I was surprised, angry, disappointed, troubled, felt inadequate, all these emotions - but after I calmed down, I fixed as many of the problems as I could. Later, we hired people to write these reports for our programmers. Everyone has to face the reality of what their software looks like to people who use it, who don't know how to avoid all the traps. And Kai now does this so well he can do it for a living.

When I was young there were a lot of foods I didn't like: cabbage, certain fish, paprika, olives, to name a few. When I was 23, I made a conscious decision to try to eat all these things and find out if it was still true. It wasn't.

I tried the same thing, later, with apologizing and admitting mistakes. Like a lot of people, I didn't like to admit mistakes. I think this was the way I was brought up. In my mind, if you admitted a mistake, or even changed your mind, this was a sign that your thinking was wrong. The feeling was, if you were wrong once, you're probably often wrong.  So better not admit it.

That was a mistake. I got it wrong in 1972. I'm sorry, my mistake.

Try it some time. See what happens. I bet most people they will respect you more for it.

I know I will. No harm in making a mistake.

We all do it.