Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lew Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: please coin a term for a lower order bug Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:01:18 -0800 Organization: albasani.net Lines: 42 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.albasani.net N4ikDiy4G09TkIZcYX4i+9zUvmrgKS2W6z0h6j/5rHvfjhAXj2I5/qS/ey9PwYwBY6tMrI620JJtUnHAbmVIpnNIRJRjFYof3WRhPiyZlfEiZfcMdko/KCagWo1QctwB NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:01:17 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: news.albasani.net; logging-data="On1j+JB2FM625P887cFaDfMZcub2ISa7cKSwNqSMG9sTFGGC2Bj5eMhACe70Vy6lYHLshDGgdO0KbFjDdtR8RD7R49gav8e3yAlbWsZ7tZuSbAZQaKay4A/qZFRqiwqi"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@albasani.net" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.24) Gecko/20111109 Thunderbird/3.1.16 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:UZH9whEM0pOpLE7S9QrjGKV7A0w= Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:11174 glen herrmannsfeldt wrote: > Eric Sosman wrote: >> On 1/9/2012 5:02 PM, Roedy Green wrote: >>> What would you call a flaw in a program that had no effect on the >>> results, but needlessly made the program slower or confusing? > >> Call them "bugs." Sub-classification as "venial bugs" and >> "mortal bugs" just reveals the classifier's lack of imagination. > > In health-care systems the difference might be more significant. ? A bug is a bug. Most shops where I've worked categorize bugs by severity or urgency to triage the order in which they repair them. All bugs have an effect on results, or they aren't bugs. That's because the definition of a bug is unexpected and undesired behavior of the system, i.e., an effect on results. All bugs have the potential to kill if the system is life-supporting. Not all health-care systems have that potential, at least not immediately. For example, one Medicare system out there (more than one, really) is a health-care system whose primary purpose is to issue payments to providers and to report on providers' effectiveness. No bug in that system will immediately kill anyone or even cause them physical pain, unless it goes unresolved for so long that, say, a dialysis clinic has to close. So health-care systems are not exceptional. The term you might have wanted was "mission-critical" systems. Still, a bug is a bug. Even compiler warnings have the potential to lead to catastrophic results. No bug is safe to leave unfixed. Because undesired, unintended behaviors are bad. Bad! So all bugs are sinful, venial and mortal alike, and none should be tolerated. Don't write bugs. -- Lew Honi soit qui mal y pense. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Friz.jpg