Me to ChatGPT: reply to this interview question "What's the weirdest bug you debugged? What made it weird?" in first-person, make it a personal story.
ChatGPT: It was early on in my career as a software developer, and I was working on a web application that was designed to allow users to upload images and apply filters to them.
One day, a user reported a strange issue where some of the filters were producing unexpected results. Specifically, they were seeing images that appeared to be completely random and unrelated to the original image. At first, I assumed it was a problem with the filter algorithms, but as I dug deeper, I realized that the issue was actually caused by a very strange bug.
It turned out that the user's browser was caching a previously uploaded image and reusing it for subsequent filter operations, even if the user had selected a completely different image. This led to some very bizarre and unexpected results, as the filter algorithms were being applied to an entirely different image than what the user intended.
To fix the bug, I had to implement a workaround that forced the browser to always load the most recent version of the image from the server, rather than relying on its cache. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of always being vigilant when it comes to caching and browser behavior.
Me to ChatGPT: reply to this interview question "What's the weirdest bug you debugged? What made it weird?" in first-person, make it a personal story, make it using C++.
ChatGPT: I was working on a project that involved developing a custom compiler. One day, a user reported a very strange issue where the compiled program would crash whenever it encountered certain input files. At first, I assumed it was a problem with the input files themselves, but as I dug deeper, I realized that the issue was actually caused by a very strange bug in the compiler code.
It turned out that there was a subtle error in one of the class definitions that was causing memory corruption in certain circumstances. Specifically, the class had a virtual destructor, but the derived class failed to declare its own destructor as virtual. This led to undefined behavior when deleting objects of the derived class, which in turn caused the program to crash.
To fix the bug, I had to carefully analyze the affected class definitions and make sure that all derived classes properly declared their destructors as virtual. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of paying close attention to class hierarchies and virtual functions in C++.
Me to ChatGPT (since I haven't worked on a compiler): reply to this interview question "What's the weirdest bug you debugged? What made it weird?" in first-person, make it a personal story, make it using C++ about the time when I ported PyTorch from Python to R.
ChatGPT: One of the weirdest bugs I encountered was during my work on porting PyTorch from Python to R. One of the major challenges was ensuring that the R implementation matched the performance and functionality of the Python version. As I was going through the codebase, I noticed a particularly strange issue that was causing crashes in the R implementation.
The issue turned out to be related to differences in how Python and R handle memory allocation and deallocation. PyTorch relied heavily on dynamically allocated memory, but the R implementation was not properly managing this memory, leading to crashes and other unexpected behavior.
To fix the issue, I had to go through the entire codebase and carefully analyze all memory-related operations. This involved a lot of debugging and experimentation, as well as close collaboration with the rest of the development team.
Ultimately, we were able to resolve the issue and deliver a stable and performant port of PyTorch to R. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of paying close attention to memory management in C++ and other low-level languages.
Note: Likely ChatGPT can also generate a fake resume, etc. so yeah.
The C++ experts here will be able to confirm, but if my memory serves, I think the story about virtual destructors doesn't make sense:
> Specifically, the class had a virtual destructor, but the derived class failed to declare its own destructor as virtual.
The derived class doesn't have to declare its destructor as virtual. What matters is that the base class does so.
> This led to undefined behavior when deleting objects of the derived class, which in turn caused the program to crash.
No; the undefined-behavior case arises if the base class destructor is not declared as virtual, and you then try to delete a derived class via a pointer-to-base.[1]
So this is a nice example of ChatGPT producing something that looks plausible, yet on examination, betrays the fact that it has no actual "understanding" of the topic.
I know it's well-known and because it's a statistical model, but I like how ChatGPT basically fills in a Mad Lib with these replies.
> ChatGPT: I was working on a [project] that [description].
> One day, a user reported a strange issue where [issue description]. At first, I assumed it was a problem with the [feature], but as i dug deeper, I realized that the issue was actually caused by a very strange bug.
> It turned out that [bug cause]. This led to [problem].
> To fix the bug, I had to [solution]. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of [lesson].
Third example deviates from this template a bit but still has the key components ("strange issue", "To fix the issue, I had to" "It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of")
ChatGPT: It was early on in my career as a software developer, and I was working on a web application that was designed to allow users to upload images and apply filters to them.
One day, a user reported a strange issue where some of the filters were producing unexpected results. Specifically, they were seeing images that appeared to be completely random and unrelated to the original image. At first, I assumed it was a problem with the filter algorithms, but as I dug deeper, I realized that the issue was actually caused by a very strange bug.
It turned out that the user's browser was caching a previously uploaded image and reusing it for subsequent filter operations, even if the user had selected a completely different image. This led to some very bizarre and unexpected results, as the filter algorithms were being applied to an entirely different image than what the user intended.
To fix the bug, I had to implement a workaround that forced the browser to always load the most recent version of the image from the server, rather than relying on its cache. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of always being vigilant when it comes to caching and browser behavior.
Me to ChatGPT: reply to this interview question "What's the weirdest bug you debugged? What made it weird?" in first-person, make it a personal story, make it using C++.
ChatGPT: I was working on a project that involved developing a custom compiler. One day, a user reported a very strange issue where the compiled program would crash whenever it encountered certain input files. At first, I assumed it was a problem with the input files themselves, but as I dug deeper, I realized that the issue was actually caused by a very strange bug in the compiler code.
It turned out that there was a subtle error in one of the class definitions that was causing memory corruption in certain circumstances. Specifically, the class had a virtual destructor, but the derived class failed to declare its own destructor as virtual. This led to undefined behavior when deleting objects of the derived class, which in turn caused the program to crash.
To fix the bug, I had to carefully analyze the affected class definitions and make sure that all derived classes properly declared their destructors as virtual. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of paying close attention to class hierarchies and virtual functions in C++.
Me to ChatGPT (since I haven't worked on a compiler): reply to this interview question "What's the weirdest bug you debugged? What made it weird?" in first-person, make it a personal story, make it using C++ about the time when I ported PyTorch from Python to R.
ChatGPT: One of the weirdest bugs I encountered was during my work on porting PyTorch from Python to R. One of the major challenges was ensuring that the R implementation matched the performance and functionality of the Python version. As I was going through the codebase, I noticed a particularly strange issue that was causing crashes in the R implementation.
The issue turned out to be related to differences in how Python and R handle memory allocation and deallocation. PyTorch relied heavily on dynamically allocated memory, but the R implementation was not properly managing this memory, leading to crashes and other unexpected behavior.
To fix the issue, I had to go through the entire codebase and carefully analyze all memory-related operations. This involved a lot of debugging and experimentation, as well as close collaboration with the rest of the development team.
Ultimately, we were able to resolve the issue and deliver a stable and performant port of PyTorch to R. It was definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever encountered, and it taught me the importance of paying close attention to memory management in C++ and other low-level languages.
Note: Likely ChatGPT can also generate a fake resume, etc. so yeah.