ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Derivative code

Imagine you are playing with plastic building blocks to make a tower. But instead of building a simple tower, you are making a complicated structure with lots of twists and turns. You might need to make little changes to the blocks to make sure they fit together perfectly.

In the same way, when programmers write code, they sometimes need to make little changes to their code to make sure it works perfectly. This process is called "debugging."

One way to debug code is to use "derivative code." Derivative code is like a special kind of tool that helps programmers find and fix mistakes in their code.

It works by checking how the code changes when little changes are made to it. Just like how you need to make little changes to your plastic blocks to make them fit together right, programmers need to make little changes to their code to make sure it works right.

Derivative code helps programmers figure out what kind of changes they need to make to their code, so that it works perfectly. This can be really helpful, especially when the code is really complicated and hard to understand.