Code and Coffee – Part 1: One Bug, One Machine

At two in the morning, the open-plan floor of the IT park in Sholinganallur was dark except for a row of blue screens and one flickering lamp above Priya's desk. The air conditioning hummed. The coffee machine in the pantry had made a loud, final gurgle around midnight and died.

"Machine is dead," said Surya from across the aisle, without looking up. "Like my will to live."

"Don't be dramatic," said Priya. "The bug is not dead either."

"The bug is alive and happy. It wants to make us suffer."

She groaned and rubbed her eyes. The bug had been in the payments module for three days, appearing only when the test server was under load and vanishing whenever anyone tried to reproduce it. She had read the logs seventeen times. She had started to dream in stack traces.

Surya stood up, stretched and wandered over with his laptop under one arm.

"Show me," he said.

She pulled up the log, scrolled to the line and pointed. He leaned over her shoulder, close enough that she could smell his cologne, mint and something faintly like cardamom, and frowned at the screen.

"That's a race condition," he said. "The cache is being read before it's written."

"I know that. I've been trying to prove it for three days."

"Then you're trying too hard," said Surya. "Take a break. Go and find some coffee. Then we'll do it together."

"There's no coffee."

"There's always coffee," said Surya, and grinned, and walked off towards the emergency kettle in the corner.

He came back five minutes later with two steaming tumblers of filter coffee, made in an old steel pot he had apparently smuggled in from his grandmother's kitchen.

"Where did you get that?" asked Priya, astonished.

"I have contacts," said Surya. "And a very kind aunt."

She took the tumbler and sipped, and her whole body sagged with relief.

"This is the best coffee I've ever had," she said. "In a terrible office at two in the morning."

"That's the secret ingredient," said Surya. "Desperation."

She laughed, a short, tired sound, and he sat down on the desk beside her, close enough that their knees touched.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Yes."

"Why do you always stay late? Everyone else goes home at seven. You're always still here."

Priya was quiet for a moment. She turned the tumbler in her hands.

"Because at home, nobody is waiting for me," she said. "The flat is quiet. Here, at least, the bugs want my attention."

Surya was silent. Then he set his tumbler down on the desk, carefully.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know."

"It's okay. You're not supposed to know everything. You're supposed to fix the cache."

"I'll fix the cache," said Surya, and his smile was warm and slightly crooked. "And after that, Priya, can I ask you to come for dinner somewhere that isn't this office? With food that doesn't come from a vending machine?"

Her heart thumped. "Yes," she said. "But not if the bug is still alive."

"Then we kill the bug first," said Surya. "Together. Green?"

"Green," said Priya, and turned back to the screen with a fierce, sudden grin. "Let's go find the race condition."