MosJan Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 Was the first computer 'bug' a real insect? print buttonPrinter Friendly Version The story is told that one of the early electromechanical computers suffered a failure because a hapless insect had crawled into the vitals of the machine and been squashed between the contacts of a relay. The incident was written up in the log-book and spread from there throughout the whole of the infant computer industry. However, although the account seems to be genuine, the word is older: the event was recorded as an amusement for posterity precisely because the term 'bug' was already in use. The term in fact originates not with computer pioneers, but with engineers of a much earlier generation. The first example cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from the Pall Mall Gazette of 11 March 1889: Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph - an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble. It seems clear from this that the original 'bug', though it was indeed an insect, was in fact imaginary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armjan Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 (edited) the original bug appears to have been imaginary, but every other bug that has followed has been all too real, often driving developers nuts, wasting huge sums of $, time, effort, let alone countless nights/wkends. it's amazing how the software engineering industry survives given the high risks & past failures. something like 65% off all projects go overbudget. I recall a few months back, the DMV system pulled the plug on a $22 million dollar project after developing it for months, it was found that it was not feasible. I mean if doctors had the same rate of success as software projects, there wouldn't be anyone left on the other hand, some of these projects (any recent linux distro) contain over 6 million lines of code. when compared to space shuttle (~1-1.5 million parts), one can truely appreciate the difficulty of undertaking one of our greatest challenges. Edited March 22, 2005 by armjan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azat Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 my favorite all time quote "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." There are MANY horror stories in the software industry and it is mostly because companies treat software development as an art form and not as science. It is for sure my favorite subject and what I got my education on and what I tried to practice in life, but I got sucked into the dark side and ended up in management. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sip Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 You know what they say about the optimist and the pessimist, right? Pessimist: Hardware will eventually fail. Optimist: Software will eventually work right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpa Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 The first computer bug was this; http://www.photovault.com/Link/Orders/Ento...SpiderWebs.html It grew into the www/worldwideweb :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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