The question why?

Why is a pretty useless question to ask in a myriad of situations and scenarios, especially in the obscure domain that is life. However, I still find myself asking this question, even when it's perceived value is minimal. I find it exceedingly useful, and interesting, finding out why, even if it may not help solve a problem at hand. Understanding alone is strangely and completely satisfying.

Case in point. I was talking to another programmer at work [the new kid on the block], and he described a situation where he added a line of code that caused lots of errors. His solution? Remove that line of code. That's all. This is where we are fundamentally and intractably different. In a situation similar to this, I'd first find out why all hell had broken loose and would only comment out that statement if I found out the cause of the new errors, which necessitates me removing this line of code, or if I couldn't find out the cause of the errors. Whatever the case, I wouldn't remove that line of code just because removing that line will result in an error free situation. Noooo. That would be too easy. I'd find it hard to resist the urge to understand the situation.

I've noticed this apparently skewed way of thinking in the way I approach problems at work. Whereas my manager, and most everyone else is concerned about giving customers something that works, I'm interested in finding out why that stuff doesn't work in the first place. I must confess that on a couple of situations, my manager has instructed me to follow the latter approach because he's realised that if he let me go on with my quest, clients may never get an acceptable solution.

This obsession has served me well throughout my life, and coupled with the stubbornness I inherited from my folks, and my sadomasochistic tendencies, has enabled me to grasp many concepts, and enjoy writing code.