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Re: [OM] Another Fine Mess

Subject: Re: [OM] Another Fine Mess
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:25:41 -0500
I think your numbers are exaggerated (even for Microsoft) but it's true 
that commercial software ships with very large numbers of both
1)  Known bugs and (at least if it comes from IBM)
2)  Estimates of the number of unknown bugs remaining.

For example, OS/2 Warp (version 4) shipped with approx. 3,000 known (but 
low severity) bugs. I don't recall how many were estimated to be found 
in the future.  Since OS/2 Warp contained approximately 3,000,000 lines 
of code the low severity bug count was judged to be statistically 
acceptable.  But the reasons this is done are:
1)  The known bugs are all judged to be of low severity... little
     impact if it does occur and/or unlikely to occur.
2)  Attempting to fix them without a complete review and test cycle
     has a high probability of introducing even worse problems.
3)  Statistics at the start of development predicted how many
     would be found and the process has been tracking the plan.

But be assured (if it comes from IBM) that every known nasty bug has 
been fixed before shipment.

But back to my comments on complexity.  Although the 3,000 minor bugs 
are individually deemed not very important (it could be as simple as a 
typo in a help message) the net effect of 3,000 minor errors of numerous 
types is simply unknown.  Do they interact in some way?  We don't know. 
  But we can make a pretty good guess about how many more problems will 
be found over the next several years and the degree of their severity.

Chuck Norcutt


On 1/28/2012 8:17 AM, Jez Cunningham wrote:
> It may be old age pickling my brain but I seem to recall that
> Microsoft said they didn't feel Windows xxx (I forget which version,
> probably 95 or 98) was ready to be released until there were only
> 28000 known bugs left... Out of the millions of lines of code it's a
> tiny defect rate.
> And don't imagine that Apple are any better!
> Jez
>
> On 28/01/2012, Chuck Norcutt<chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
>> Simply my true view of the computer and software world after having
>> spent 30 years in both application and system software development.
>> "Incompetence" is probably too severe since what I really mean is that
>> the complexity of the things we build are beyond our ability to
>> completely understand them.
>>
>> Chuck Norcutt
>>
>>
>> On 1/28/2012 5:56 AM, Chris Barker wrote:
>>> Very droll, Chuck, and delightful irony. Or is that sarcasm?
>>>
>>> :-)
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On 28 Jan 2012, at 02:39, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>>>
>>>> Were you ever a software developer?  You're not giving simple bugs and
>>>> human incompetence their due.
>>>
>> --
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