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rgkpzyesterday at 8:56 PM5 repliesview on HN

"All software has bugs" is the most meaningless statement ever. It is just used for bonding with fellow bug writers who sit at a virtual campfire and muse about inevitabilities.

Demonstrably some software has fewer bugs, and its authors are often hated, especially if they are a lone author like Bernstein. Because it must not happen!

Projects with useless churn and many bug reports are more popular because only activity matters, not quality.


Replies

dc396yesterday at 11:43 PM

If DJB is "hated", it isn't because he's a lone author (Linus Torvalds was once a lone author and I don't think he was hated). It's because he can be an asshole. To quote George Bernard Shaw, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

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shermantanktopyesterday at 11:40 PM

“Fellow bug writers” is everyone. People who write fewer bugs exist, and a lone few who write many fewer.

I haven’t noticed antipathy, but I have noticed skepticism. I assume people with outlier records in any field get some extra inspection.

If it becomes jealousy-fueled not-picking, those people are insecure jerks. But unusual track records are worth understanding.

zx8080today at 12:19 AM

> "All software has bugs" is the most meaningless statement ever.

It's not! It's the foundation of all dev AI products marketing.

zamadatixyesterday at 9:19 PM

"All software has bugs" so "be wary of the one trying to say they haven't had any in 3 years" not so "I guess all are equal". For extremely low security bug rates either the scope is extremely narrow, the claim is dubious, or the project is a massive effort which the community talks about directly in posts rather than plugs (e.g. curl).

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vascotoday at 3:22 AM

> Demonstrably some software has fewer bugs

You literally write fewer instead of none, therefore agreeing with the sentence you claimed to say is meaningless.