Research Gap: Quantifying Developer Time Spent on Error Handling vs Happy Path Code
By
mooreds
8mo ago· 2 min readenInsight
70/100
Toasty
Bagelometer↗
Not artisan, but a perfectly fine bagel. Hits the spot.
Score70TypeanalysisSentimentneutral
Summary
A software developer working on fault tolerance tools shares that while their approach makes applications more reliable and potentially increases developer productivity by reducing error handling code, there is a lack of research quantifying how much time developers actually spend on error detection and handling versus the "happy path" code. The author notes this time investment is substantial and likely increasing as applications become more distributed.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledThey have never been able to find research that quantifies how much time developers spend on code for detecting and handling problems relative to the effort for the "happy path"
they know it's substantial, and is (probably) increasing as applications become more distributed
Their tool makes applications more reliable, but they think it also makes developers more productive by reducing the amount of error detection and handling code they need write
I recently received mail from someone working on a software-based approach to fault tolerance.
Their tool makes applications more reliable,
but they think it also makes developers more productive
by reducing the amount of error detection and handling code
