Everyone who writes safety critical software should read this

[Wyatt]

On Thursday, 31 October 2013 at 21:36:11 UTC, eles wrote:
>
> Yeah, maybe is a corporation culture to avoid the term "bug", 
> but we always use the term "change request". Maybe it has a 
> better image :)
>
Lately, I've instead been reframing my thinking toward parity 
with Dijkstra.  EWD1036 [0] is particularly relevant to this 
topic:

"We could, for instance, begin with cleaning up our language by 
no longer calling a bug a bug but by calling it an error. It is 
much more honest because it squarely puts the blame where it 
belongs, viz. with the programmer who made the error. The 
animistic metaphor of the bug that maliciously sneaked in while 
the programmer was not looking is intellectually dishonest as it 
disguises that the error is the programmer's own creation. The 
nice thing of this simple change of vocabulary is that it has 
such a profound effect: while, before, a program with only one 
bug used to be 'almost correct', afterwards a program with an 
error is just 'wrong' (because in error)."

As a bonus, my experience is it more readily encourages 
management types to accept that fixing them is important.

> Normally, it is assumed that passing the tests proves that 
> specifications are accomplished, so the software is perfect.
>
> This, of course, if the tests themselves would be correct 100% 
> and *really* extensive.
>
Again from EWD1036:

"Besides the notion of productivity, also that of quality control 
continues to be distorted by the reassuring illusion that what 
works with other devices works with programs as well. It is now 
two decades since it was pointed out that program testing may 
convincingly demonstrate the presence of bugs, but can never 
demonstrate their absence. After quoting this well-publicized 
remark devoutly, the software engineer returns to the order of 
the day and continues to refine his testing strategies, just like 
the alchemist of yore, who continued to refine his chrysocosmic 
purifications."

This passage comes just after he laments that "software engineer" 
had been diluted so thoroughly as to be meaningless.  (I'd 
greatly appreciate if this term could be reclaimed, honestly.  
Experience has shown me quite clearly that not every programmer 
is an engineer.)

-Wyatt

[0] 
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html