GregHowley.com

Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work

November 28, 2006 - -

I happened across this great list yesterday, and we've been laughing about it since then. I've personally used or paraphrased over half of these.

20. "That's weird..."
19. "It's never done that before."
18. "It worked yesterday."
17. "How is that possible?"
16. "It must be a hardware problem."
15. "What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?"
14. "There is something funky in your data."
13. "I haven't touched that module in weeks!"
12. "You must have the wrong version."
11. "It's just some unlucky coincidence."
10. "I can't test everything!"
9. "THIS can't be the source of THAT."
8. "It works, but it hasn't been tested."
7. "Somebody must have changed my code."
6. "Did you check for a virus on your system?"
5. "Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
4. "You can't use that version on your system."
3. "Why do you want to do it that way?"
2. "Where were you when the program blew up?"
1. "It works on my machine"
Comments on Top 20 replies by Programmers to Testers when their programs don't work
 
Comment Tue, November 28 - 5:44 PM by Magus2
For years there have been three main ones here that we've wanted to put on shirts:

1. It works upstairs.
2. That's one line of code. (to fix)
3. It's in the next build.

Our 1 is similar to your #1.

Also, not in your list, we get a lot of:
It's a configuration problem.

That means they are saying sysads didn't do their job.
 
Comment Wed, November 29 - 8:10 AM by Brandon
Yes, as a QA, I've heard all of them. #1 is my favorite. My response is usually, "fine, we'll just ship your machine with it."
 
Comment Wed, November 29 - 8:22 AM by tagger
Lest we forget the late, great John Banner (aka Sgt. Schultz), "I know NOTHING!"
 
Comment Wed, November 29 - 8:47 AM by Greg
Brandon? You're a QA guy too? Between you and The Guru, I'm starting to wonder if all the other blogs I read are written by testers.
 
Comment Thu, November 30 - 8:00 AM by Brandon
I am indeed a QA Analyst. Given that we're such a technologically saavy and generally awesome bunch, I wouldn't be surprised if all the blogs you read are written by us. Well, all the good ones anyway.