A couple centuries ago, fires were seen as a natural side effect of cities. If you put that many businesses and houses together, sometimes it would just all burn down. Cities were useful, so you accepted that every once in a while a whole lot of people would die in a fire.
Much of the software world is in the same state today. Bugs are seen as a natural side effect of code. If you build systems that solve that many interesting problems for people, sometimes it will just all screw up. Software is useful, so you accept that every once in a while a whole lot of people’s work will die in a bug.
The people building and debugging software today have similar methods of working to the people building and de-firing cities then. But today, fire fighting and city planning are different. They prevent fires. Fires still happen, but no cities burn down and few people die. Let’s do the same with bugs. Continue reading “Treat bugs as fires”