Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!ugun2b!ugsc2a!fisher
From: fisher@sc2a.unige.ch
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: BUGS (re: Jargon file)
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.110314.331@sc2a.unige.ch>
Date: 4 Dec 90 09:03:14 GMT
References: <1YbxCV#0YFHYG9zh4Tw3Ytjsy4ddrOM=eric@snark.thyrsus.com> 
 <1000@langtry.cs.utexas.edu> <1YcyWg#7l0Bjm3RJHypB5h8ZN1z23lH=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 24

First of all, thanks for the Jargon file!  As a european reader, I must
admit that it took me quite some time to figure out some of the acronyms
and other typical USENET expressions (somehow a posting of "what's the
meaning of %s" doesn't always seem the right thing to do :-); it's nice
to have all the answers in one place!

Now just a sory about BUGS:

My father used to word at the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research),
and he described one of their first non-mechanical calculators, in the early
sixties, as being a "small house full of tubes and relays".  This huge
machinery was used - I think - essentially for statistical calculations.
Well, sometimes the results were not exaclty those that were expected, and
this usually meant is was "debugging time".  You see, the cockroaches (sp?)
liked the heat for building their nests... resulting in some very strange
behavior.

Later, every misbehavior of calculators and computers was of course always
blamed on the BUGS!

I don't know if this ethymology of "bug" and "debug" is true (the story is,
though), but I like it better than that of the Jargon file.

Markus Fischer, Dpt. of Anthropology, Geneva CH


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