bugs

A software bug is an error, flaw, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program’s source code or its design, or in frameworks and operating systems used by such programs, and a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code. A program that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy. Reports detailing bugs in a program are commonly known as bug reports, defect reports, fault reports, problem reports, trouble reports, change requests, and so forth. Bugs trigger errors that can in turn have a wide variety of ripple effects, with varying levels of inconvenience to the user of the program. Some bugs have only a subtle effect on the program’s functionality, and may thus lie undetected for a long time. More serious bugs may cause the program to crash or freeze. Others qualify as security bugs and might for example enable a malicious user to bypass access controls in order to obtain unauthorized privileges. The results of bugs may be extremely serious. Bugs in the code controlling the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine were directly responsible for some patient deaths in the 1980s. In 1996, the European Space Agency’s US$1 billion prototype Ariane 5 rocket had to be destroyed less than a minute after launch, due to a bug in the on-board guidance computer program. In June 1994, a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter crashed into the Mull of Kintyre, killing 29. This was initially dismissed as pilot error, but an investigation by Computer Weekly uncovered sufficient evidence to convince a House of Lords inquiry that it may have been caused by a software bug in the aircraft’s engine control computer. In 2002, a study commissioned by the US Department of Commerce’ National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that “software bugs, or errors, are so prevalent and so detrimental that they cost the US economy an estimated $59 billion annually, or about 0.6 percent of the gross domestic product”.