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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,21b3f6811a7b30be X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard Riehle Subject: Re: "Bugs" (Was: Anyone could give a complete and yet small program on the use for the generic Date: 1997/01/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 208492725 references: <5ahf34$snd$1@news.nyu.edu> <5aitud$hjr@top.mitre.org> content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII organization: National University, San Diego mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-01-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Rich Maggio wrote: > Mike, you seemed to have forgotten the most basic > axiom in software engineering - > > "All software has bugs!" :-) In software engineering we have abandoned the term "bug" in favor of the word, "mistake." Software practice has long been the only engineering wannabee that has chosen to abdicate responsibility for its own errors by euphemizing those errors with the word, "bug." The original "bug" was an actual insect that orginated outside the computer in which it appeared. If an error in one program originates in some other program, it might be a "bug" in that receiving program,but it is probably someone else's mistake. A programming mistake results in a software defect. The defect is the cause of a run-time fault. It is encouraging to see the relatively recent metric, "defect density" in wider use. Now we simply need to attribute those defects to mistakes instead of to "bugs." Following on the proposition stated by Mr. Maggio, we may ask the question, "Does all software contain mistakes?" Richard Riehle