Git Blame Driven Development
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Git blame driven development is when you look at broken code and your first action isn't to fix it — it's to run git blame to find out who wrote it. The actual fix takes 5 minutes. The detective work to assign blame takes 30 minutes. But knowing WHO is responsible is apparently more important than fixing the problem. It's the developer version of watching security camera footage instead of locking the door.
Real Talk
Git blame driven development is a (tongue-in-cheek) anti-pattern where developers prioritize identifying the author of problematic code over fixing it. While git blame is a useful tool for understanding code history and context, using it primarily for attribution creates a blame culture that discourages risk-taking and honest postmortems. Healthy teams use git blame for context, not for assigning fault.
When You'll Hear This
"Before you git-blame-driven-development this, let's just fix the bug." / "I ran git blame and it was me from 6 months ago. I blamed myself."
Related Terms
Code Review
A code review is when another developer reads your code before it gets merged, looking for bugs, bad practices, or anything confusing.
Git
Git is like a magical save system for your code. Every time you save (commit), it remembers exactly what changed.
Postmortem
A Postmortem is the meeting you have after an incident to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.