Slashdot Mirror
'The Year That Software Bugs Ate the World' (fastcompany.com)
FastCompany's harrymcc writes: It's not like there's ever a year that isn't rife with stories about buggy software. But 2017 seems to have had an unusually rich supply of software flaws that fouled up major products -- from Twitter to iOS 11 to the Google Pixel 2 -- in ways that were very noticeable and sometimes even funny. Sample this: A nagging flaw in Google's Play Services software for Android causes Gmail to demand access to "body sensors" before it will let users send email. Android Police's Artem Russakovskii discovers that his Mini is recording audio 24/7 and storing it on Google's servers. I rounded up a bunch of them over at Fast Company.
Programming in traditional programming languages instead of the latest fad language and framework. And develop in our own countries instead of outsourcing it.
99 bugs in the code to be fixed, 99 bugs in the code. Fix a bug, wrap it up, 148 bugs in the code...
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
The average person still does not care at all. Hence software can still get worse and even cheaper to make before it starts to cut into profits. And it will.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Lately, I've been seeing "untrusted site" warning dialogs in GMail for sites I know are okay (mine, for instance). This kind of inappropriate linking interference is harmful to the web at large. There are billions of perfectly trustable links to billions of web pages out there. Google's going to confuse a lot of people about what is "okay" vs. what is "not okay" as they're getting the determination outright wrong. As far as I'm concerned they have no business making the determination in the first place, but since they can't even do it right, they should really GTFO.
The examples listed are not necessarily bugs, even if they are named so when they're found out.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. But then again, never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by corporate greed.
I think a major contributor to all these bugs is that every. single. thing. has to be connected to every. other. thing. My computer has to talk to my phone which has to talk to my watch which has to talk to my refrigerator which has to talk to my toaster. All that connectivity makes software waaay more complicated that it needs to be. Now throw in some corporate greed where software design goes to the lowest bidder and you get what we have today.
Next year: Even more software, even more bugs.
So many consoles/handhelds were hacked this year? Off-hand, 3DS went from very hackable to complete hackable (with a magnet and a ds flash cart), Vita went from hackable to on-boot hackable (3.60 firmware), PS3 went much more hackable (nearl latest firmware), Switch went hackable (up to version 3.0?). Some PS4 and XBox One news.
At this point, what consoles can't play backups or can be are uncommon enough to not be viable? How many of those are softmodable? Seems that the need for mod chips has dropped substantially.
I would go with shorter development time, nowadays less and less testing is done before a release,..
"Beta testing? BAhhhhh,... that is what users are for."
with that and your boss telling you to release now since he had a quick look and didn't see any problem,... (after a 5min glance)
Formal validations of software using math is already difficult and will be more so when applied to AI domain. Just the definition of what constitutes correctness is a challenge in such systems.
The demarcation between traditional programming bugs vs undesirable outcome due to flawed learning blurs as software complexity increases. Subtle biases or other instabilities can be introduced that influence cognition and it will be nearly impossible to trace.
If the app misbehaves, trying to trace and attribute it a segment of code may soon be a thing of past. So, 2017 as 'The Year That Software Bugs Ate the World' is probably just the precursor of a future where good enough is the new norm.
I mean I remember the "Good Old Days" where the system would crash when you look at it wrong, or typed too fast. SQL Injection errors were common...
These bugs that came out this year, while bugs, is a far cry to the risk of trying to use a computer during the 1990's or before.
I haven't seen a BSOD (or its equivalent) in nearly a decade now. These glitches that we get today, while some are serious, they are rather small in the big picture.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
the year the frog noticed the water was getting kind of hot.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Have you taken the time to consider how many libraries are used in the average project? Most of those are open source projects, continually updating and relying on other libraries from other projects. Like coding inception.. a bug or change inside of a library, inside of a library, inside of a library inside of a program that messes everything up. Vigorous testing is the only hope.
There seems to be a bit of a push these days towards not having traditional testers and removing that skillset from the SDLC is what's causing it. Partly due to the Agile/cross functional methodologies as well as CI/CD which encourages the mind set that we can just fix things quickly when things go wrong.
The idea that automation can solve all your testing needs is also becoming more prevalent, an idea often pushed by developers since they understand the programming side of it but not necessarily the testing side. It is something I see often as a professional tester/automation engineer, the idea that the developers can write all the tests. No, testing is a different mindset - developing is problem solving, testing is problem finding.
My last contract ended early when the company decided they didn't need a traditional tester at all, apparently in their minds anyone could do it, despite all my trying to show them otherwise. We started doing automation, the devs would take that over, and people like the sales people and founder would do the app testing. Yeah, right.
The mentality is summed up in idiotic posts like this Software Testing – Is It Time To Fire Your QA Team?
People use examples like Facebook and Yahoo, who both say they have no testers, as examples to be emulated without realising not all software is created equal and the need for quality on a mission critical piece of software is somewhat different to totally non critical software like Facebook.
Fast Company - for those who find The Verge too technical.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
After years of down costing, outsourcing, and hiring clueless H1 Bs this is the inevitable result.
If we had capability based security in our systems, this kind of stuff would require the user to knowingly allow these types of activities. Until then, we're all screwed. Stop blaming everything but the OS. It's not the programmers or the users.
When will you suckers realize that a solid, well engineered foundation is the key to every successful construction project???
You "strengthen-it-later" types are why we can't have nice things; you merely sit back in your rubble, and smugly proclaim to be the great first-mover innovators.
"2017 seems to have had an unusually rich supply of software flaws that fouled up major products -- from Twitter to iOS 11 to the Google Pixel 2 .. Google's Play Services software for Android ..
Something missing from that story, just on the tip of my tongue, is it any wonder this has become known as the Microsoft Slashdot.
Two Bytes to $951M
Yup. Both of the Google "bugs" sure do look a lot like features. User-hostile features, sure, but planned intentional features all the same.
Google is always watching. (And listening, too, it seems.)
Stop Google now before it's too late.
Liars passing off intentional decisions as 'bugs'.
Agile was made to reduce craftsmen. It's cheaper.
The industry is reaping what it sows.