I just encountered a situation which I like to call a programmer's Pandora box : imaging you're testing a fix for a small bug in an otherwise bug free, beautifully coded program. A routine job like any other. Suddenly, during the tests you discover a new bug in a completely different part of the program. You fix that bug too, but during the next test run, another bug pops up which leads to a chain of bugs and fixes with an increase in anger, hate and suffering.


I discovered that you should stop after 3 encountered bugs, after which you should take a break/coffee/nap. Stopping will give you an uncanny and unhappy feeling, during which the Pandora box will continue to haunt your mind, but failing to do so will lead to a completely mutilated program.