An old saying I learned in search and rescue work is:

You can't be part of the solution if you become part of the problem

In other words, be careful when you are trying to help. If a policeman is speeding too fast around a corner while he is racing with his lights and siren blaring, and ends up getting in an accident and disables his car, he's become a problem. When I have done radio operations at a search and rescue base, I had to keep track of the whereabouts of all the different search groups. The thing I feared most was losing contact with one of the search groups, and having to inform my commander that we needed to start a search within a search. When these kinds of things happen, they are almost always the result of lack of preparation or carelessness.

So when I am on the track of one bug or problem, nothing aggravates me more than discovering some problem in another tool I am trying to use to solve the first problem, or worse yet, a third problem while I still haven't dealt with the first two.

This situation of finding bugs within bugs reminds me of those Russian Nesting Dolls, or Matrioshka Dolls. I call this situation "Matrioshka Bugs".

Read the rest of the story about Matrioshka Bugs...

This excerpt exists in this space because apparently the {excerpt-include} is unable to include content from a different space... - Garnet 4/23/2007