Sometimes, surfing the Internet, you can meet the word "bug". What does it mean and what is the etymology of a given word? You can find answers to these questions in this article.
What is a bug?
The word "bug" comes from the English language. In English, a bug (pronounced "bug") is a bug or bug. This word is used mainly among programmers, testers and gamers. But what does it mean?
A bug is a mismatch between the technical specifications of the program and the actual behavior of the system. Due to this discrepancy, software cannot fulfill the function intended by the developer. In simple terms, a bug is an error that occurs due to a flaw in the source code of a program.
Origin of the word
Perhaps now it’s worth talking about the etymology of this word. A bug is a professionalism that is most often used among programmers. There are several options for the origin of the word.
If you believe the legend, then this professionalism appeared back in 1945. This happened when scientists from Harvard University tested a new computer called the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. The device refused to work, and the reason was a tiny moth that got stuck between the contacts. The insect was removed from the computer and slapped into a special technical diary. Near the moth there was an accompanying inscription “First actual case of bug being found”, which translates as “The first case in practice when a bug (bug) was discovered”. After this funny story, the word “bug” began to be used in the meaning of “error”.
There is also a version that this professionalism appeared long before the testing of a computing device. Some people believe that the term bug owes its origin to the famous inventor Thomas Edison. According to legend, Edison was looking for a cockroach in his phonograph, but he was not there. The bug was in the device itself.
Another version says that the word "bug" appeared during the Second World War. Then under this term meant problems with radar technology.
The word bug began to spread rapidly. In the 80–90s, only programmers used this professionalism. With the advent of the Internet, the word began to be actively circulated. Now, a “bug” in their vocabulary is used by everyone who has at least the slightest relation to computer technology (gamers, ordinary Internet users, etc.). Therefore, now it can be safely called part of Internet slang.
Game bugs
Bugs are not only in programs, they are quite common in games. A game bug is a developers flaw, due to which the game process is not going as it was originally intended. Throughout the history of the gaming industry, thousands of buggy projects have been released. We will talk about the most famous and entertaining in this section.
Perhaps the most zabagovannoy project in the last few years can be called Assassin's Creed: Unity. Ubisoft projects have never been famous for their optimization, but Unity is a real encyclopedia of bugs. Sometimes characters are in very strange and unnatural poses, fail in textures, pass through walls, or simply hang. Why is there a bug that circled the entire Internet in a matter of hours (the characters simply lost their faces, which made them look rather creepy). Even Yubisoft itself admitted its mistake, released a patch that fixes bugs, and compensated buyers for damage.
Sometimes players perceive bugs as features, game features. This happened with a mega-successful series of games called Mortal Kombat. In the first part of the game there was a bug that repainted Scorpio (one of the main characters of the game) in red. In this case, the name of the hero was replaced with the error message Error Macro. The players considered that this flaw was the developers’s idea, and the red ninja was an additional secret character. Ed Boon (creator of MK) liked this idea, and in the next part he added this hero to the game under the name Ermak (short for the same Error Macro).
How to protect yourself from bugs?
In order to remove bugs from their projects, developers hire special people called testers. The task of the tester is to find all the flaws in the program, game, or any other software.
But testers do not always find bugs, and sometimes a couple of flaws still seep into the final version of the project. In this case, all hope for users who can send a special letter describing the error is a bug report. This will help improve the final product. In addition, large companies are well rewarded for finding bugs in their products. For example, as an incentive for finding significant bugs in its browser, Google is ready to give 15 thousand dollars.