TABLE OF CONTENTS If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Gerald Weinberg
I don t believe that the story of a moth found in a relay of one of the first digital computers adequately explains why software defects are commonly referred to as bugs. Books on debugging often begin with a recitation of how Adm. Grace Hopper found a moth, which had shorted out an electronic relay, in the Mark II computer. While the story may be true and although there are many variations told, the aptness of the term goes far deeper than this incident.
The word bug is commonly used to refer both to insects and arachnids. In the natural world, bugs are often the chief competitors of human-kind. Scientists speculate that if humans became extinct, bugs would become the dominant life form on the planet. According to the Bible, three of the ten plagues that God visited on Egypt, to free the Israelites from slavery, were visitations of bugs (gnats, flies, and locusts). Bugs bite us, sting us, destroy our houses, consume our food, and transmit to us many of the worst diseases that afflict humanity.
Software bugs afflict people in very similar ways. Like natural bugs, they re everywhere. Almost all interesting software has bugs, and most interesting software has far too many bugs. Like natural bugs, they cause irritation and even pain when we encounter them. Now that computer chips are embedded in...
