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Uninitialized Variables

Unchecked Return Values

When developing an algorithm, developers tend to focus attention on the "good" path, the path that leads to the desired result.
The failure paths are given lower priority or forgotten about.
- Effort is spent on getting the algorithm correct with the intent to go back and add error checking.
- Once the algorithm is working schedule/deadlines may make moving on to a new task seem like a good idea.
Always checking for error conditions while developing the "good" path is distracting to the developer.
- Each time the developer encounters a potential failure point they are no longer thinking about the algorithm at hand but how to handle this error and whether or not it can be recovered gracefully or if the program should be aborted.
- Once the error condition is handled, the developer must "ramp up" again on where he left off on the "good" path.
- It becomes very tempting to put off error handling to later, at which point it is easily neglected.