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Home/ Questions/Q 982023
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Editorial Team
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Editorial Team
Asked: May 16, 20262026-05-16T04:37:58+00:00 2026-05-16T04:37:58+00:00

There is a subtle reason why it might not be good: Sometimes, the blame

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There is a subtle reason why it might not be good: Sometimes, the blame for breaking something really should be placed on the individual who wrote fragile code without automated tests, not the one who broke their code by making a should-be-unrelated change somewhere else.

One imaginable example is when someone programs against an interface in a way that assumes behavior specific to the implementation du jour, but not guaranteed by existing contracts. Then someone else makes a change to the implementation that fits in the contract, but breaks the depended-on code. No tests fail because no tests are written for the depended-on code. Who’s really to blame?

The purpose of this isn’t to blame people, but to understand responsibilities, and if “You break it, you buy it” is really such a good policy.

EDIT: I really worded this poorly. I meant it to be about how to write correct software with respect to dependencies, including hidden dependencies. I meant this to be a question of what a programmer’s responsibility is to avoid bugs, not what to do when a surprise bug is found. BUT, since so many answers have been given already, I’ll let the question stand as-is and indicate an answer accordingly.

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  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-05-16T04:37:58+00:00Added an answer on May 16, 2026 at 4:37 am

    Fixing it is the purpose not laying the blame. Suppose the orginal author of the fragile code has moved on, who would own the problem? Suppose he or she is simply assigned to another project? The person who ran into the problem needs to be the one who owns it until it is fixed, he or she is the person currently there and currently assigned to the task of making changes to the application.

    Now if you know the code was created with a problem that should be avoided in the future and the orginal developer is still there, it would be a good thing to let him or her know about the issue and why it caused a problem, but ultimately the person who ran into the problem is the one who will need to fix it to get his new code to work.

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