From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e4b2dce209393666 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard D Riehle Subject: Re: Business Week (12/6/99 issue) article on Software Quality Date: 1999/12/08 Message-ID: <82mkun$1to$1@nntp4.atl.mindspring.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 558317174 References: <82hk54$cbc$1@nntp6.atl.mindspring.net> <82kv5j$k6p$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Organization: MindSpring Enterprises X-Server-Date: 8 Dec 1999 22:09:27 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-12-08T22:09:27+00:00 List-Id: In article <82kv5j$k6p$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar wrote: >In article <82hk54$cbc$1@nntp6.atl.mindspring.net>, > Richard D Riehle wrote: > >> Software development is the only engineering wannabee that >> euphemizes its mistakes with the cutsey monicker, "bug." > > >Seeing as the first recorded use of this word is by Thomas >Edison, in connectin with work on some electronics, this >seems a dubious claim. Although this may be historically accurate, contemporary engineering practice does not encourage the use of "bug." In fact, Edison, for all of his genius, was operating at a level of engineering discipline somewhat parallel to the early days of unstructured programming. Much of his work was equivalent of what Pressman calls, "exploratory programming." I stand by my claim that no responsible engineer, in any other discipline, would give the excuse that, "The bridge collapsed because there was a bug," or "The circuit fried because of a bug." Granted that some IC manufacturers have adopted this terminology to account for errors in their own designs, but the fact remains that these are errors, not bugs. They originate in 1) incomplete understanding of the physics, 2) failure to work out the logic correctly, 3) occasional negligence, 3) excessive haste, or any number of other factors. When an automobile gas tank explodes due to a collision with another car, is that a function of a bug? Of course not. An engineering discipline in its infancy may be able to assign mystical properties to the mistakes it makes and call them bugs. As that engineer becomes more mature, the engineers and engineering management become more responsible, more precise in their language. Sometimes we may not know what error created the defect. We would want to admit that and go on to find the error. Fortunately, this is exactly what good programmers do about bugs. Sadly, some major software publishers continue to release software in which they acknowledge "known bugs," a phrase that has the effect of minimizing the importance of the defects. If that software were released with a list of "known mistakes" one can imagine the litigation that might ensue. Richard Riehle