Laws on Programming (Was: Re: [ Re: UNIX- Grad-daddy of all modern operating systems?])

[Darrin Chandler]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 01:48:52PM -0700, Alan Dayley wrote:
> Carlos Macedo Gomes wrote:
> > 
> > I like these laws even better:
> > 
> > George's Laws on Programming
> > 
> > 1. There is no such thing as a programming bug. A bug was the moth that
> > Grace Hopper pulled out of her vacuum tube computer. What programmers
> > like to call bugs are defects - defects in workmanship - defects in
> > quality.
> 
> A rose by any other name...
> 
> Why do you feel it is important that defects are not called bugs?

If I can jump in with my own answer...

If bugs are something that happened now and then, and everyone had a
chuckle and then they got fixed, then it really wouldn't matter.

When defects are serious and/or numerous enough to plague the entire
industry it's a different matter. The difference between a "bug" and a
"defect" is that bugs happen. Bugs "get into" the software. Defects are
caused by people. They are mistakes. Someone causes a defect. So to
continue calling them bugs is to perpetuate a mindset that accepts them
as something we just have to live with. The darned little critters just
crawl into the code!

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD User Group  |  MetaBUG
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://phxbug.org/      |  http://metabug.org/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |  Daemons in the Desert   |  Global BUG Federation