Most developers think bugs live in the code.
They don’t.
Bugs live in assumptions about where things should be.
Today I spent hours on two problems that looked completely different.
One was a function that couldn’t find its config files in production.
The other was a pagination route that vanished on page two.
Same root cause.
I was telling the system where to look, but the system was looking somewhere else.
Think of it like giving someone directions to your house.
You can describe your house perfectly.
You can tell them every detail.
But if they’re looking on the wrong street, none of that matters.
The most expensive bugs aren’t logic errors.
They’re path errors.
A function that works great in your laptop dies in the cloud because it’s looking for files in the wrong place.
A page that loads fine on page one breaks on page two because the route says go left when the system goes right.
You can write the smartest code in the world.
But if the path is wrong, no one ever sees it.
Here’s what I learned today.
Before you fix what something does, fix where it looks.
Before you optimize logic, optimize routes.
Before you add features, make sure the system can actually find them.
The best code is code that actually runs.
And the best code runs because someone cared enough to get the path right first.
Most people spend their lives perfecting things no one can reach.