Stop Calling them ‘Bugs’
Let’s name things the right way
TL;DR: We need to stop the bugs
According to Wikipedia:
A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. The process of finding and fixing bugs is termed “debugging” and often uses formal techniques or tools to pinpoint bugs, and since the 1950s, some computer systems have been designed to also deter, detect or auto-correct various computer bugs during operations.
The Past
There are many historical references to the word Bug.
Thomas Edison used it even before the first electrical computer.
During computing’s early days on Mark III, the large computing facilities generated heat, attracting real insects like moths.
Computer pioneer Grace Hopper coined the term while investigating a system malfunction.
The Present
70 years after, datacenters are very clean facilities (leaving no space for people or insects). Even our home computers are almost free from malfunction caused by real bugs.
Yet you still name software glitches as bugs instead of faults and this is keeping us from confronting with real problems, real defects and our own responsibilities.
You control the software quality process.
You are responsible for delivering quality products consistently.
The term Bug sounds like an excuse, suggesting forces outside your control caused the problem. They didn’t.
The Future
Language is continuing evolving. We recently got rid of the master word on our GIT repos.
To embrace the future and our own responsibilities, you need to be very careful with names, not only with your classes, methods and variables but also with your artifacts.
You don’t need to debug software anymore.
Find the root fault (caused by yourself, previous developers or even IA generators), embrace the problem, write an automated test, and fix it. Easy as that. 🐞
You no longer need bug trackers. You just need to care for incidents, and not all incidents are faults.
Surprisingly, many of them are related to misunderstandings, lack of definition, ambiguities etc. 📋
You don’t want to fix all software faults. A good deal of mature software have known bugs. Now called known defects. ✔️
Let’s start by calling things by their real names.
Part of the goal of this series is to spark debate and discussion on software design.