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Using Redundancies to Find Errors
gsbarnes writes "Two Stanford researchers (Dawson Engler and Yichen Xie) have written a paper (pdf) showing that seemingly harmless redundant code is frequently a sign of not so harmless errors. Examples of redundant code: assigning a variable to itself, or dead code (code that is never reached). Some of their examples are obvious errors, some of them subtle. All are taken from a version of the Linux kernel (presumably they have already reported the bugs they found). Two interesting lessons: Apparently harmless mistakes often indicate serious troubles, so run lint and pay attention to its output. Also, in addition to its obvious practical uses, Linux provides a huge open codebase useful for researchers investigating questions about software engineering."
"There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like." George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2002.
How's that for redundant?
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
It's been more than 3 hours since the last post. I was beginning to feel like a crack addict in need of shot.
Ahhhhhh. Thank you editors.
The editors redundantly post stories, which is the error.
I'm taking bets we see this one again within the next 72 hours.
Is this how CmdrTaco finds errors in news articles?
~D:
"The goals for this country are peace in the world. And the goals for this country are a compassionate American for every single citizen. That compassion is found in the hearts and souls of the American citizens." George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2002
Modded down within 10 seconds of posting.
:(
Slashdot is a harsh mistress.
~D:
Don't you get tired of this obsessive karma whoring?
Reminding people about karma whoring is karma whoring ;-)
in terminus illic est tantum opes
"Two Stanford researchers have written a paper showing that seemingly-harmless reposted Slashdot stories are frequently a sign of not so harmless editing errors. Examples of redundant stories: AP articles posted on both CNN and Salon, every incremental increase in a W3C standard, and seemingly every damn story about Legos. More on this story tomorrow when Hemos posts it."
Ask Jesus into your heart today!
he used redundancies to help him find errors in the article
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
Actually, according to the Omnipotent Moderation Gods On Duty Tonight - it's offtopic *grin*
oh god, i actually found that funny.
someone shoot me, please.
Bang!
In Soviet Russia, dead horse beats YOU!
a floor cleaner... and a desert topping!
Wow, strcpy.
lint has all rights to complain when you use that function. Most of the time, you don't know the size of what you're copying over. It's the basis of most buffer overflows.
Mwahaha! I laughed so hard when I read this.
Yakov Smirnoff would probably laugh too. I just checked out
http://www.yakov.com
so I guess he's still alive and well.