Jargon file v2.1.5 28 NOV 1990 -- part 1 of 6

[Tom Rombouts]

In article <207 at frcs.UUCP> paul at frcs.UUCP (Paul Nash) writes:
>Thus spake eric at snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond):
>
>> BUG [from telephone terminology, ``bugs in a telephone cable'', blamed
>>    for noisy lines] n. An unwanted and unintended property of a
>>    program, esp. one which causes it to malfunction. See FEATURE.
>
>I have heard this attributed to Rear Admiral (retd) Grace Hopper, who 
>had a malfunctioning program.  The cause was traced to a fried moth in
>the back of the computer.


As many people may know, this is covered in "The Devouring Fungus" on
page 64 and 65 of "The Cybernetic Gods" chapter.  I don't want to spoil
it for people who have not yet read the book, but essentially "bug" to
mean a problem or snag has an older linguistic heritage than one might
expect!


Tom Rombouts  Torrance Techie  tomr at ashate.A-T.com  V:(213)538-7108