[Who Killed Kenny?]

Originally Posted by Neags23

Pretty off-topic for the thread, but it is a generally accepted software engineering principle that all software has bugs.

Just because a bug isn't apparent or hasn't been seen doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Most complex software has bug catching routines/methods/functions, if you will, that mitigate the typical outcome of a bug. Just because a program has never crashed, never worked improperly or has shown no sign of bugs doesn't mean it doesn't have any. Just means the developers did an exceptional job of mitigating them. In such a case, the unintended effect happens, it triggers an exception and the program catches it and points itself in the right direction. The end user knows nothing about this.

One might say that this isn't really a bug. But it is, because it is still an error/flaw/mistake in the program. Just because you fix your mistake before anyone sees it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

And then one might say "what about a program that has the sole job of writing one line of text to a screen?" Well, even that is prone to compiler bugs or bugs in the text editor the code was written in, the OS the program runs on, etc.

Basically, just because you haven't seen the bug doesn't mean it's not there.

Good point. Very Zen. If a bug breaks the software and no one is around, does it make a sound?