Ask HN: What do you think, which is harder.. developing features or fixing bugs?

We had this conversation at work this morning because my current project is porting a feature from one system to another very similar system (ultimately forked from the same code.) The basic "implementation" is a cut-and-paste job but almost all the work is tracking down whatever problem turn up.

Even though the end result is a very showy feature visible to end users the actual work is a search-and-destroy mission for bugs.

I'm sending this ticket back because requirements aren't clear/can't reproduce. \s

Serious answer: depends on the specific bugs or features in question. Some features are harder than bugs, but some bugs are harder than features.

Those are the same thing, problem solving by extending/revising a code base.

I agree generally, but my feeling is that fixing bugs is usually harder, because a good chunk of the time, you don't know the code you're looking at, whereas with feature development, it's all greenfield. At least in most environments.