We say that software has a bug or it’s ‘buggy’ because it is malfunctioning. It’s not working the way it is designed to work. This is usually the fault of a programmer somewhere, who either made a mistake or was not able to anticipate all the possible ways the software might operate. If you’re the programmer who accidentally made things go wrong, it can be stressful, and the results can be far-reaching.
In 1962,the rocket carrying the Marina 1 space probe veered dangerously out of control and had to be destroyed 290 seconds after launch. The cause? A tiny bug in the guidance software (a missing hyphen in the code) which prevented it from receiving signals. The cost?$18m.
In 2008,buggy software at the new Heathrow Terminal 5 resulted in thousands of bags being sent to the wrong locations and 500 flights cancelled at a cost of more than £16m. And in the run-up to the year 2000, the so-called ‘millennium bug’ resulted in costs of between $300bn and $500bn worldwide to prevent potential computer disasters. It was all because most software uses two digits rather than four to represent the year, so when the New Year arrived, the world’s computers would suddenly think it was 1900 instead of 2000. That could have been a lot of timetables and schedules messed up.
It’s the job of software testers to try and catch all the bugs, but when software is hugely complex and runs on thousands of different types of computer hardware in combination with millions of other pieces of software, it can be almost impossible to squash every last bug. All of this means that your unique computer setup with your specific software might just be that rare combination that makes the bug show itself – much to your frustration!
Read more:
- How often should I reboot my computer?
- How do you read binary numbers?
- Could computers get a virus that’s as contagious and difficult to eliminate as the coronavirus?
- How do computer viruses work?
Asked by: Charlotte Lee, via email
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