Ironing out the bugs
Alan Walker
a job by fixing up the last few problems seems to be a decidedly mixed
metaphor.
It would be more logical to "iron out the wrinkles" or to "catch the bugs".
Does anyone know how the expression arose?
Martin A. Mazur
Many computer programs are fixed with "patches", which remind one of dried,
flattened bug carcasses spread all over a once pristine and properly commented
and indented code ;-).
--
Martin A. Mazur | 2nd Century thoughts on MTV:
The Applied Research Laboratory | "There is no public entertainment which
The Pennsylvania State University | does not inflict spiritual damage"
| - Tertullian
The Hermit
|The phrase "ironing out the bugs" to describe a process of finishing off
|a job by fixing up the last few problems seems to be a decidedly mixed
|metaphor.
|
|It would be more logical to "iron out the wrinkles" or to "catch the bugs".
Of course it would, but then you miss the joy of mixing metaphores! :)
Also, the second of the two should be "fix the bugs" or "squash the bugs",
not "catch the bugs." Catching bugs and fixing bugs are two different
activities entirely -- beta testers and end users catch bugs, programmers
fix them -- and it's the second of the two which would be the analog of
"ironing out the wrinkles." Programmers do occasionally catch bugs (and
go on to fix them), but usually by accident. Programmers believe their
code works fine until proven otherwise, and are genuinely surprised when a
bug pops up while they're running their own programs. :)
KJBlake
g...@winternet.com (The Hermit) writes:
>Also, the second of the two should be "fix the bugs" or "squash the
bugs",
>not "catch the bugs." Catching bugs and fixing bugs are two different
>activities entirely -- beta testers and end users catch bugs, programmers
>fix them -- and it's the second of the two which would be the analog of
>"ironing out the wrinkles." Programmers do occasionally catch bugs (and
>go on to fix them), but usually by accident. Programmers believe their
>code works fine until proven otherwise, and are genuinely surprised when
a
>bug pops up while they're running their own programs. :)
>
>|Does anyone know how the expression arose?
I believe the term "bug," referring to an error in a computer program, was
coined by Commander Grace Murray Hopper, of the US Navy.
Alan Horowitz
>I believe the term "bug," referring to an error in a computer program, was
>coined by Commander Grace Murray Hopper, of the US Navy.
It originated when an insect was found fried to death, shorting out
two electrical contacts. Can't rtemember which early computer this was
in. I've added alt.folklore.computers, those folks will flood us with
replies.
bmb...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Horowitz) writes:
No, and yes. No, it didn't originate with an insect found between a
pair of electrical contacts, and yes, we at alt.folklore.computers
will likely flood you with replies.
Here is what the Jargon file has to say about it:
:bug: n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program or
piece of hardware, esp. one that causes it to malfunction.
Antonym of {feature}. Examples: "There's a bug in the editor:
it writes things out backwards." "The system crashed because of
a hardware bug." "Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs"
(i.e., Fred is a good guy, but he has a few personality problems).
Historical note: Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer
better known for inventing {COBOL}) liked to tell a story in
which a technician solved a {glitch} in the Harvard Mark II
machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts
of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated {bug} in
its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though, as she was
careful to admit, she was not there when it happened). For many
years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug
in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface
Warfare Center (NSWC). The entire story, with a picture of the
logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the "Annals
of the History of Computing", Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981),
pp. 285--286.
The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1947), reads "1545
Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being
found". This wording establishes that the term was already
in use at the time in its current specific sense -- and Hopper
herself reports that the term `bug' was regularly applied to
problems in radar electronics during WWII.
Indeed, the use of `bug' to mean an industrial defect was already
established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather
modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896
("Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity", Theo. Audel & Co.)
which says: "The term `bug' is used to a limited extent to
designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of
electric apparatus." It further notes that the term is "said to
have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred
to all electric apparatus."
The latter observation may explain a common folk etymology of the
term; that it came from telephone company usage, in which "bugs in
a telephone cable" were blamed for noisy lines. Though this
derivation seems to be mistaken, it may well be a distorted memory
of a joke first current among *telegraph* operators more than
a century ago!
Actually, use of `bug' in the general sense of a disruptive event
goes back to Shakespeare! In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's
dictionary one meaning of `bug' is "A frightful object; a
walking spectre"; this is traced to `bugbear', a Welsh term for
a variety of mythological monster which (to complete the circle)
has recently been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through
fantasy role-playing games.
In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
Here is a plausible conversation that never actually happened:
"There is a bug in this ant farm!"
"What do you mean? I don't see any ants in it."
"That's the bug."
A careful discussion of the etymological issues can be found in a
paper by Fred R. Shapiro, 1987, "Entomology of the Computer Bug:
History and Folklore", American Speech 62(4):376-378.
[There has been a widespread myth that the original bug was moved
to the Smithsonian, and an earlier version of this entry so
asserted. A correspondent who thought to check discovered that the
bug was not there. While investigating this in late 1990, your
editor discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had
unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it -- and
that the present curator of their History of American Technology
Museum didn't know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile
exhibit. It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991, but due to
space and money constraints has not yet been exhibited. Thus, the
process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug fixed it in
an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth true! -- ESR]
--
--
Buddha Buck phae...@dreamscape.com
"She was infatuated with their male prostitutes, whose members were
like those of donkeys and whose seed came in floods like that of
stallions." -- Ezekiel 23:20
Singam
>In article <4j895c$6...@sydney1.world.net>, cera...@hitech.net.au (Alan
>Walker) wrote:
>|The phrase "ironing out the bugs" to describe a process of finishing off
>|a job by fixing up the last few problems seems to be a decidedly mixed
>|metaphor.
>|
>|It would be more logical to "iron out the wrinkles" or to "catch the bugs".
>|Does anyone know how the expression arose?
Would anyone believe that the original 'bug' was an insect that got
fried in the innards of a computer and got the technicians running
around in circles trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
Since that day, when something went wrong, the first thing to do was
to look for a 'bug'.
Heard of the term 'breadboarding'? Wonder why?
Cheers.
SV Singam
Minden, Penang
Truth, viewed from all angles, remains Truth.