I’ve always loved to find bugs in code through mental debugging — especially other people’s code. Besides being fun, bug hunting improves product quality as well as one’s programming and problem-solving skills.

One of the books I enjoyed most is “Find the Bug” by Adam Barr. It contains many examples of buggy code in various programming languages, ranging from assembly language to Python. I heartily recommend it to everyone who shares my passion.

What a pity that there aren’t more books like this on the market!

To relieve our misery, I’ve decided to setup a new series: at irregular intervals I will post a bug-afflicted piece of code and challenge you to spot the problem. I don’t want to limit this sport to particular programming languages or defect categories; some bugs will be straightforward while others may be intricate, potentially only showing under certain, favorable circumstances.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this new series as much as I do — stay tuned, the hunting season is open!