Yes exactly. Any non-critical out of current scope bug must be evaluated for whether it should interrupt the current work. Is it a priority? You cannot automate this process by saying “if is_bug: return {priority: IMMEDIATE}” as suggested by the quote about id above, because you will absolutely destroy any velocity. In fact that quote seems to me to be talking about not committing new code with known bugs, not dropping everything as soon as a non-critical bug is discovered in old code.

Instead you need to have a triage process and a planning process, which to some degree most software teams do. The problem is that most of these processes do not have a rigid way of dealing with really old low priority bugs. A bug fix week is one option for addressing that need.

Your argument is only true if you have an infinite number of bugs.

If you only have a reasonable number of bugs, and fix them as you find them, it's just how you do work.

It may sound impossible, but I did work like this for two decades, and it worked well for those teams.

No. My argument is valid if you have deadlines and your resources are not infinite. Either you were the only one reporting bugs at which point of course you could fix the as you found them because they were always in your work context or you had no deadlines and could afford to switch context without the inefficiency of it affecting anything.

In most situations you have users who also find bugs and report them when they want, not when you are ready for them.

You can even see that your argument does not apply generally by the fact that bugs exist in software for years. If your way was both more efficient AND more aligned with human nature then everyone would be working like this but clearly almost nobody can afford to drop everything to fix a user’s random low priority bug the minute it is reported.

Well, we clearly come from very different work methodologies.

You have deadlines, velocity is a goal rather than a measurement, and probably several other (IMHO) process mistakes. In such systems, doing what is best for the organization can often be bad for your personal career. Still, that's probably the norm in much of the industry.

My view is that having bugs is costly. They cause problems in development, and alienates users. A bug free code base is an incredible asset to have!

You say it's inefficient to "switch context" and fix a bug the moment you find it. There is some truth there, but... (1) there are ways to work without huge context load, (2) I don't have to fix the bug that very minute. Usually, I make a note and get to it the next day or so. Also (3) the average bug fix in a well structured and tested code base is usually pretty quick.

> If your way was both more efficient AND more aligned with human nature then everyone would be working like this

This assumes the software industry is really well organized. After 40 years experience writing software, that is just hilarious! Though I probably also thought that before I got involved with much better organizations.

I suspect we do. Though you misunderstood my comment about velocity. I was using that purely as a way to demonstrate that something measurable is affected by dropping everything to fix a bug. Sounds like you do wait for an opportune moment to fix a bug and do not make it a top priority after all so I think you see the cost of interruptions.

But yes I am aware of lots of parts of this industry where you do not need to rush a project no matter what. I worked at places that had a breakneck velocity and at places where it is much more chill. I prefer the latter but I can say that I still want to ship software which means goals and deadlines. Bugs should be fixed ASAP but priorities must also be respected.

After 20 years doing this as a career, I agree this industry is a bit of a mess :)