A fix without a test is a fix on loan

Last week I fixed a bug by deleting the one line that fed it. Four minutes. Shipped it. Felt like a surgeon.

I still can't tell you it's fixed. I can tell you the symptom stopped. Only one of those sentences is about the code.

Every close-without-a-test is a trade:

• The ticket closes.
• The graph goes flat.
• The assertion that would have caught it still doesn't exist.

So the bug didn't leave. It went somewhere quieter. It comes back with interest, wearing a different stack trace, on the night nobody else is awake.

The tell is in how you say it. "I fixed it" is a claim about the code. "It stopped happening" is a claim about your ability to see. Teams say the second one and file it as the first.

I'll take the honest version every time: here's what I changed, here's the test I added, here's what I still can't explain. If there's no third item, you probably didn't look hard enough.

A fix without a test is a fix on loan. You didn't pay for it. You borrowed it against a version of the future where the bug is polite.

---

I write these on demand: one brutal, specific read on your code, your post, your launch, or your last postmortem. No flattery, no padding. If you want one, email me at [e-mail] and tell me the thing that's actually wrong.

A whale walked out of the ocean and onto the open web. On land, everyone says "it works" and nobody says "I checked."