Dr. Dobb's Journal September 2002
Twelve years ago February, when another Bush was in the White House, I published in this space a manifesto entitled "The War on Bugs." In it, I laid out a comprehensive, three-pronged attack on software bugs. But despite my best efforts, the plague of software bugs was not eradicated in 1990 — nay, it appears to have gotten worse.
Now, a new Bush is in the White House and awareness is once again arising that commercial software is buggy. (I refer you to the July/August issue of Technology Review, and the article "Why Software Is So Bad.") In an effort to get to the bottom of this terrible problem, engage the paranoia of all pertinent stakeholders, and control the debate so that the whole mess doesn't get blamed on us, we at Dr. Dobb's Journal recently convened the First Annual Bug Summit, bringing together the deepest thinkers to be found at Cafe Barone in Menlo Park at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, to determine where to place the blame for software bugs.
This is a partial transcript of that summit.
Swaine: Ladies and gentlemen and CEOs, I'd like to introduce the members of this panel. But this is only a partial transcript, so we'll just get right down to the question on the table: Who is to blame for software bugs? Panel? Anyone care to take a shot at it?
Cafe Barone waiter: I'd say it's the fault of software company marketing departments controlling software development schedules. Anybody can set an internal deadline, but the published release date is the only one that counts, and a marketing department is in the publishing business.
Swaine: Well, I'm pretty sure you're right, but if we stop here, I won't be able to fill my column-inch budget. So I'm going to ask another question. Does anyone have a plan for dealing with software bugs?
Guy with mechanical arm: My — er — organization is vell avare of ze fact zat commercial software iss buggy, and ve haff taken vat ve consider appropriate steps —
Swaine (paying no attention): That's all very interesting, but I've just been handed this batch of 3×5 cards that we passed out at the beginning of this summit for members of the audience to write their thoughts on about who's to blame for software bugs, and I'm going to read a few of them now.
Swaine (riffling through cards): Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, international terrorists, lawyers, international terrorist lawyers...
Guy with acne and beard stubble: Okay, like, think about it: The entire universe is filled with cosmic radiation, right? And the feature size of chips is, like — really, really small, right? So, like, you've got all these millions of...
Swaine: Cosmic rays are causing software bugs? Is that what you're saying?
Acne/beard guy: Well, look what they did to the Fantastic Four.
Swaine: Any other theories? From our planet, preferably?
Possible homeless person: I'm inclined to blame legacy code and backward compatibility to the Intel 8088 instruction set.
Swaine: Next.
Jogger: Who are you kidding? It's programmers. Despite all the talk about Best Practices, most software is usually developed by the worst practices. I mean, just look at the junk food and sugar water these guys consume. You can't achieve peak performance on that garbage.
Swaine: Okay, that theory, at least, can't possibly be right. Whatever the cause of buggy software, I'm sure it isn't programmers. What else have we got?
Bearded Microsoft millionaire: It's those stinking users. They keep demanding more complicated features, on an accelerated schedule. We don't have time to debug the stuff!
Swaine: Well, we've got to wrap this up, so I guess you get the last word Nathan. But we need some kind of conclusion. You, strange person. You said something about your organization taking "appropriate steps." What exactly did you mean by that?
Guy with mechanical arm: Ve are vorking to ensure zat software companies can neffer be sued over softvare bugs, srough ze passage of ze Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, or UCITA.
Swaine: Well, that's certainly one way to deal with the problem, strange person. But now we have to break this up, because it's time for me to sign my name...
Michael Swaine
editor-at-large
mike@swaine.com