Comments on: 12 Practical Tips for Building Bug-Free Software

By: wikiBuddha

wikiBuddha — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:10:11 +0000

I actually believe that software can be 100% bug free; or at least 99.99%.

And in an attempt to discredit the possibility, Johnson above, provided a list of examples which unfortunately do not exhibit the same nature as software and accordingly does not hold water.

Unlike his examples, software is not subject to degradation (or is capable of not being so) or mechanical failures. This is not to say that a software-driven system will never exhibit “problems” but that the software has the propensity to never fail while something attached to it (usually hardware) may.

A couple of OS have been released which claim to be mathematically provable that they behave as expected (unlike Windows), a critical step in providing truly error free software.

Nevertheless, I still hold that software can be bug free (not the way most people develop though).

I once read some works from a guy who was adamant that software can be 100% bug free and there’s no reason not to strive for it, but I can’t remember his name and I stumbled here looking for it again.

You may do well to familiarize yourself with the Unix software development ideology. If think link will go through, it might at least help you decrease the amount of bugs in your software:
http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?UnitTest

By: raspnortantem

raspnortantem — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:39:48 +0000

Hello guys and girls!

I’m a newbie here.

So i’d like to know if a world financial crisis affected someone among you?

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:34:43 +0000

Even after software deployment I recommend sending detailed error reports in case of errors/bugs. There are different tools that enable you to do this. (eg Eurekalog..)

By: John

John — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 06:07:40 +0000

Maybe R. Cruz can enlighten us about what he sees as the best Development Tools?

By: R Cruz

R Cruz — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:31:08 +0000

Just I will add a point, select your development tools properly. As many bugs will come from your development platform. Incorrect or bug in the compiler, that are not addressed by the manufacturer.

We discovered that a bug free code can be a night mare on a totally crapy developer platform, when the right platform is used no bugs.

By: Peter Muys

Peter Muys — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 01:07:40 +0000

+1000 for user reporting and feedback.

After adding user feedback and error reporting to my application, I found some bugs I myself would never have found.

Should have added this from the beginning…

By: C Johnson

C Johnson — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:16:34 +0000

People like to think that bugs are limited to software, but truely, it extends to other things as well.

Ever hit your thumb with a hammer? I’d call that a glitch derived from a design flaw. Gun misfire? Car need continual maintenance and even service packs (factory recalls to install safety equipment), even upgrades and options. Consider public transit the open source version (which provides a great parallel to other open source projects on many levels).

So yes, bug free is a myth started by those who assume that the devices around them work flawlessly when it just isn’t true. Speaking of which, I have to go debug my lawn, it keeps overflowing…