Unconscious bugfixing

[mtbc]

I find it interesting how, just occasionally, when I am not at a computer, I realize something quite specific that is probably wrong in code that I wrote, something that relies on precise recall of its details: when I go back to check then it usually transpires that the fear was well-founded and I have something to fix. This suggests that I have cognition occurring that can work on intellectual problems beyond my conscious awareness. Or, perhaps I saw that my code was wrong while I was working on it yet that realization could not immediately come to mind but was instead strangely delayed.

To take a trivial example from yesterday's Java programming, at work we have model objects that all implement the IObject interface that includes accessors for an id property: I correctly guessed while driving the car that I was comparing object x with another object's y.getId() instead of like with like. My code still did not work as hoped after I fixed that mistake but that is a problem that can wait for the new week.