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Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug

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On 1/15/2012 5:39 AM, Eric Sosman wrote:
> On 1/15/2012 7:21 AM, Wanja Gayk wrote:
>> In article<jehjrs$3ba$1@news.albasani.net>, noone@lewscanon.com says...
>>
>>> A bug is a bug.
>>
>> If something runs correctly, but slower than necessary, but still
>> acceptable, how can it be a bug?
>
> As a preliminary, let's note that the phrase "but still
> acceptable" was not part of the bug description until you added
> it. With that in mind, on to the story:
>
> In 1981 I was peripherally involved with a system that did
> interactive searches of a newspaper's content. (If that doesn't
> sound remarkable, take note of the era: Before Google, before Yahoo,
> before Altavista, before the Web itself, before the first IBM PC.)
> One gang of PDP-11 computers handled the searching, and another gang
> digested the newspaper's daily data flow and updated the indices.
>
> At one major metropolitan newspaper, the system was running
> smoothly and doing its job pretty much as intended. Sure, there
> were hiccups, but they did not seriously inconvenience the system's
> users or operators. Yet despite the mostly correct functioning, the
> installation was an abject failure. Why?
>
> Because feeding one day's worth of copy through the indexer took
> about twenty-eight hours.
>

I would say that was a definite performance bug - one of the
requirements was to process one day's worth of copy in less than 24 hours.

Here's another practical example, at little bit further in the non-bug
direction. Many years ago, I was working for a computer manufacturer
whose customers included an oil exploration consulting firm. Their major
resource was people who could interpret seismometer traces.

There were several different transformations on the traces, so one work
flow had an expert study a trace, choose the next transformation, give
it to the computer, then go work on something else for the next few
hours or even days. Even if the original task was the expert's highest
priority, nothing useful could be done on it. The sooner the transformed
data came back, the sooner the expert would have the option of returning
to the original task.

In that sort of situation there is a minimum acceptable speed, but
faster is better.

Patricia

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please coin a term for a lower order bug Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-01-09 14:02 -0800
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Peter Duniho <NpOeStPeAdM@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> - 2012-01-09 14:18 -0800
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug bugbear <bugbear@trim_papermule.co.uk_trim> - 2012-01-10 09:18 +0000
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2012-01-10 11:46 -0500
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug David Lamb <dalamb@cs.queensu.ca> - 2012-01-10 16:00 -0500
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug markspace <-@.> - 2012-01-10 13:38 -0800
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-10 15:14 -0800
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Peter Duniho <NpOeStPeAdM@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> - 2012-01-10 18:01 -0800
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug markspace <-@.> - 2012-01-10 08:52 -0800
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-10 17:52 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Peter Duniho <NpOeStPeAdM@NnOwSlPiAnMk.com> - 2012-01-10 19:44 -0800
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-10 20:35 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-01-11 10:54 -0800
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Ian Pilcher <arequipeno@gmail.com> - 2012-01-09 17:29 -0600
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-01-09 21:26 -0500
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-10 02:43 +0000
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-10 07:01 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-01-11 03:23 -0600
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-15 13:21 +0100
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-01-15 08:39 -0500
            Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-01-15 06:39 -0800
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-01-10 06:45 -0400
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-01-10 07:54 -0500
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-10 07:13 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2012-01-10 18:17 -0400
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-10 15:23 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-01-11 03:30 -0600
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-01-11 08:08 -0500
            Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm@dimnakorr.com> - 2012-01-11 14:38 -0600
              Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-11 15:48 -0800
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-01-11 11:01 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-01-12 01:45 +0000
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-11 18:05 -0800
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2012-01-10 09:52 -0700
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug markspace <-@.> - 2012-01-10 09:51 -0800
      Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-10 18:08 -0800
        Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-10 19:30 -0800
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Lew <noone@lewscanon.com> - 2012-01-10 22:11 -0800
            Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-11 15:52 -0800
          Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2012-01-11 13:38 -0700
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-01-10 14:05 -0500
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug v_borchert@despammed.com (Volker Borchert) - 2012-01-11 20:59 +0000
    Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-01-11 15:53 -0800
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Fredrik Jonson <fredrik@jonson.org> - 2012-01-12 06:59 +0000
  Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Wanja Gayk <brixomatic@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-15 12:45 +0100

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