Representative Line: Time Dilation

A good variable name is clear and specific about what the variable does. But sometimes you can have a variable name that's perhaps a little too specific. Victoria found this representative line of Rust code:

let threeseconds = time::Duration::from_secs(60);

Time certainly can stretch when you're deep in debugging, and three minutes can feel like an hour. And as you cross that event horizon, you start asking yourself questions. It's easy to understand how this code came to be: they though they needed three seconds for some task, but actually needed 60. They'd already made the variable name, and didn't want to trace through changing it everywhere.

But that's not really an explanation. Victoria shares her questions:

I then started wondering "so how did that code come to be? What kind of problem required them to think they'd need three seconds, but then bump that value up to 60?". That went a bit further with "So, judging by this representative line, what would the rest of the code look like, how would it even work?". I still haven't figured that last part out.

Don't worry, Victoria, if you need more time to work on understanding it, I know a great programming trick to make more time"

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