Why we call them bugs???

[Marc Clifton]

OK, here's a few suggestions: Damn, my program has an Obama! You found a Republican? I'll get right on it! I'll need a screenshot of that Democrat before I can determine how to correct for that behavior. There are too many Politicians in the current implementation. I strongly suggest a complete re-design. Marc

My Blog

[PIEBALDconsult]

That was not the first bug.

[Marcel van Vugt]

Undocumented features that is...

[Marcel van Vugt]

As i replied earlier: undocumented features

[Abu Mami]

nah - I prefer my bugs straight up

[deutschspracher]

Much older, think "fly in the ointment" older. :)

If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in. ~Edsger Dijkstra

[HirogenCD]

"It's not a Bug, it's a feature" So all Bugs are Features

[BrainiacV]

Any experienced programmer knows they are "features", not "bugs." I'm sure the old grizzled story about Grace Hopper and her moth will come up. To be clear, there were "Bugs" before that moth. It's just that she had a physical specimen of a metaphorical entity. Come on guys, it was a great pun! It was the press and the retelling of the story that made it into the myth (moth?) that it turned into. And like doctors who are trained never to say, "oops," but instead say, "there!" (like they meant to do it), we should train ourselves to say, "Feature." As in, "The feature just erased your hard drive." "We plan to eliminated that feature in our next release."

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

[Fabio Franco]

How about insects? It would still fit how it all started and you have a different name! Let's insecticide this program!

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

[xiecsuk]

And here's me thinking it was just a shortened form of "buggers", as in "little buggers".

[Nikunj_Bhatt]

How about calling it Woman ;) Other names could be Politician, Lawyer. "News Reporter" (which gives you news that you have got a bug!!!) Psychic Feature, Programming Violence, Unknown Déjà vu, Code Murder, Computer Idiom

[ARBebopKid]

My high school typing teacher actually used to work as a debugger a long time ago, she's probably about 85 now. She worked with the hardware including the vacuum tubes and often had to clear out the bugs to keep the machines going.

[Robert Ludwig]

The story I heard is that it originated when computers had mechanical relays to act as logic gates. A moth became trapped under one of the relays causing the program to malfunction. Hence, the program had a bug (literally).

[Stefan_Lang]

Right. Let's name them Hug! Hey, everybody wants one! ;) (P.S.: also it sounds much nicer if I tell you you're hugging me :D )

[edmurphy99]

Google is your friend

[msvbdev]

the last suggestion applies perfectly to our current state of government :)

" 'To Err Is Human'... If that's true, than users are the most human people I've ever met" -Anonymous ASP Developer

[starmerak]

Good suggestion, let's forever after call them "imps". "Why did the program crash?" "It is an Imp."

[KP Lee]

PIEBALDconsult wrote:

Nagy Vilmos wrote:

as old as computers

Older than that actually.

Well, that depends on your definition of a computer and the scope of what you are talking about. Bugs probably predate dinosaurs. I say that is out of scope for this thread. (why mistakes in computers are called bugs.) Nagy had a link to "Grace Hopper". That also is basically how I remember the term coming into being. I accept her being the mother of the term coming into existence relating to bugs being in computer programs. If you think about it, the computer had to exist for Grace to be digging around in it to find the little bugger causing all the problems. Therefore the computer is older than the term as it relates to computer bugs. I'll concede that "fly in the ointment" would be older than that and that it relates to problems being encountered, but that too, is out of scope for the specific use of the term. I'll say that the term came about, nearly at the beginning of the start of what we now call a computer. However Charles Babbage got the credit for designing the first computer and he died well before Grace was born. (His machine wasn't built until fairly recently.) At least that (credit) was the case into the beginning of this century. Now if you search for the oldest computer, they've found a machine they are calling a computer that was built more than 2000 years ago. If you count that as a computer the term bugs in a computer is just a young whippersnapper.

[obermd]

Actually, IMPs are Interface Message Processors, the precursors to today's routers. They were built by BBN as part of the original DARPANet project. Mike.

[obermd]

How about "features"? That would be a bug with seniority. Mike.