Bob Stinkycode: the production gnome, who is he?

You know who I'm talking about right? It's that entity/being that makes sure that your code does not function the same way in your local, development and production environments. Well, he's a gnome and is called Bob Stinkycode.

I imagine he looks something like this after he has messed with you:

Let's see an example: you've been working on a feature for a while, you've tested and everything works perfectly. Then the code is deployed to a real environment and some part of the feature that worked and had been tested extensively before does not work. You check and double check and crap, theoretically it should work, you can't explain why the hell it's failing... and of course your code is perfect and the only posible explanation is that the Bob has done it again, he is messing with your code...

It's a hard problem to solve, as Bob decides when to let the code work and when to mess with it. If you look for him you will not find him, he has 1000s of lines of code, 100s of folders and 10s of services and processes to hide...

The only solution is to accept it, and let him get tired, once he get's bored your code will work again... Don't waste your time trying to solve it xD

Another example: A user reports a bug, we have screenshots, reports in Sentry, and when we try replicating it, it never happens again. This is also Bobs fault.

Jokes aside, I think Bob is just a metaphor of the ego and/or pride of a developer. Sometimes it's easier to swallow, than to accept your code has flaws. I'm guilty of this, but try to always tell myself that bob is just uncertainty and ignorance about a bug.

That's it for me, hope you enjoyed the quick read. Do you have experience with Bob Stinkycode? How do you call him?

Credits

• GIF by tenor
• GIF 2 tenor