Re: Bugs or Mistakes?

["M." <me@home.xx>]

MaryAnn Atkinson wrote in message
<19991112202656.2368.rocketmail@web216.mail.yahoo.com>...
>Richard D Riehle wrote:
>> What we call a "bug" is actually a mistake. Someone tried to do
>> something and made a mistake.  The mistake results in a defect.
>> The defect is a potential run-time fault. Managers need to take
>> the responsibility for elminating the word "bug" from the
>> vocabulary of their software personnel.
>
>Why so harsh words? You are talking about a "bug" like its
>a dirty word, or like we are somehow not allowed to make them...

They aren't harsh words; they're accurate words -- unlike "bug."

There is a surprising attitude change that comes with eliminating "bug" from
one's professional vocabulary.  It does away with the illusion that the
program is a personage working against the programmer.  It eliminates the
idea that a bad design can be debugged to a some level of acceptability --
which in turn discourages programmers from rushing to code.

For management, it enables greater precision in classifying defects.  You've
got a "bug," you say?  Is it a coding defect, design defect, or
specification defect?  How am I going to revise the schedule if I don't
know?

Have you ever, during a job interview, asked an employer, "How many mistakes
am I allowed to make per week?"  Of course not!  Nobody's saying that
mistakes aren't allowed, only that programmers should have serious quality
standards.

>Bugs are mistakes ONLY if they are not found and corrected!

That's not a very useful observation.  Given program X, how do you determine
the number of defects that have not been found and corrected?

>P.S. Besides, you can't easily make a verb out of "mistake", you know?
>     What, am I going to be "demistaking" my code now?

Correcting.  Fixing.  Removing defects.

M.