5 ms·

Your comment makes me wonder what the largest elapsed time duration has been so far between the previous release of a popular software project and a confirmed,

by jka 6y ago

Your comment makes me wonder what the largest elapsed time duration has been so far between the previous release of a popular software project and a confirmed, accepted bugfix. (naturally it'd be easier to determine that for free/open source projects, although only a subset of the overall space) Edit: add the word 'popular', to potentially make the answer more widely-accessible by filtering out tiny/niche projects

jka 6y ago
Self-reply: perhaps an easier way to express this question would be: "What is the most reliable popular software product in use today, determined by the absence of reported bugs?"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
petemir 6y ago
Probably just one example: Mozilla fixed a 14-year-old bug in Firefox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245
- jka 6y ago
  Impressive - tagged for mozilla 0.91 in the bugtracker twenty (!) years ago. I didn't express the criteria I had in mind very clearly; I'd been wondering about longest elapsed time without any other bugreports occurring (ruling out Mozilla, and probably many other large codebases). Essentially trying to determine ways to find the best-known examples of stable and reliable widely-used software.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    TeX and METAFont just had bug fix releases after 7 years or something.
    - jka 6y ago
      Thanks - good examples. That also led me to https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html which is a unique curiosity. Do you know if that was a 7-year duration from previous release to bug discovery, or a 7-year duration between releases?
      - bombcar 6y ago
        It’s the latter (and not sure if it is 7 years) - but Knuth only looks at big reports periodically (and he has people who scrub them for him) and has declared that upon his death any remaining bugs are features and the code will cease changing. The bugs are super obscure edge cases now - I suppose if someone found an extremely severe bug Knuth would release earlier than the next planned interval. http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf has further details. It’s from a different time where programs could be considered to have a “final form” and be completed. True software engineering.
  - pdw 6y ago
    The BSDs had a bug in the seekdir() function that was only discovered after 25 years: https://msys.ch/fixing_seekdir https://msys.ch/fixing_seekdir
    - jka 6y ago
      Incredible, and what a great write-up. I think that's the front-runner at the moment :) Edit: addendum: To correct my own comment: I guess technically this doesn't pass the "without any other bugreports" criteria, so it's in the same category as the Mozilla issue report, and perhaps the sort algorithm is the front-runner. Perhaps it'd be possible to add some kind of focusing criteria around the 'size' of the module/component - since any large enough codebase is - at least using today's development methodologies - likely to include bugs.
- jfk13 6y ago
  14? Hah.... a mere youngster. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92176 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92176 was close to 20 years old when it recently got fixed. (Pretty sure I've seen even older issues eventually get fixed, but don't recall details offhand.)
imglorp 6y ago
Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls had a latent bug in its binary search program for 20 years. This is so humbling. Not only did the master miss this, despite proving it correct, but also the Java and C++ library authors. https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about...
- ant6n 6y ago
  That website is borked, half the content is off screen on mobile.
  - high_priest 6y ago
    What in the world means "borked"? Is it some kind of hybrid of "botched" and "broken"?
    - owyn 6y ago
      Ha yes, exactly. There are a few different meanings based on context. But it's primarily just one of those fun sounding nonsense words that I also like to say. Not sure where I picked it up from. It is usable in any sentence as a drop in like a G-rated "fucked". There's the nonsensical swedish chef muppet catch phrase "bork bork bork", but he usually says that before everything goes wrong. There was also a judge named "Bork" who was "borked" when his nomination to the supreme court was blocked. I feel like "borked" is probably of a vintage like "fubared" which is a WW2 thing.
kencausey 6y ago
Funny. I just watched this video from 8-Bit Show and Tell last night: https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg . This bug appears to be from 1978. Of course, we have no idea if this time was the first time the bug was discovered.

by jka 6y ago

jka 6y ago

Self-reply: perhaps an easier way to express this question would be: "What is the most reliable popular software product in use today, determined by the absence of reported bugs?"

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

petemir 6y ago

Probably just one example: Mozilla fixed a 14-year-old bug in Firefox https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10274245

jka 6y ago
Impressive - tagged for mozilla 0.91 in the bugtracker twenty (!) years ago. I didn't express the criteria I had in mind very clearly; I'd been wondering about longest elapsed time without any other bugreports occurring (ruling out Mozilla, and probably many other large codebases). Essentially trying to determine ways to find the best-known examples of stable and reliable widely-used software.
- bombcar 6y ago
  TeX and METAFont just had bug fix releases after 7 years or something.
  - jka 6y ago
    Thanks - good examples. That also led me to https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html which is a unique curiosity. Do you know if that was a 7-year duration from previous release to bug discovery, or a 7-year duration between releases?
    - bombcar 6y ago
      It’s the latter (and not sure if it is 7 years) - but Knuth only looks at big reports periodically (and he has people who scrub them for him) and has declared that upon his death any remaining bugs are features and the code will cease changing. The bugs are super obscure edge cases now - I suppose if someone found an extremely severe bug Knuth would release earlier than the next planned interval. http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb42-1/tb130knuth-tuneup21.pdf has further details. It’s from a different time where programs could be considered to have a “final form” and be completed. True software engineering.
- pdw 6y ago
  The BSDs had a bug in the seekdir() function that was only discovered after 25 years: https://msys.ch/fixing_seekdir https://msys.ch/fixing_seekdir
  - jka 6y ago
    Incredible, and what a great write-up. I think that's the front-runner at the moment :) Edit: addendum: To correct my own comment: I guess technically this doesn't pass the "without any other bugreports" criteria, so it's in the same category as the Mozilla issue report, and perhaps the sort algorithm is the front-runner. Perhaps it'd be possible to add some kind of focusing criteria around the 'size' of the module/component - since any large enough codebase is - at least using today's development methodologies - likely to include bugs.
jfk13 6y ago
14? Hah.... a mere youngster. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92176 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92176 was close to 20 years old when it recently got fixed. (Pretty sure I've seen even older issues eventually get fixed, but don't recall details offhand.)

imglorp 6y ago

Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls had a latent bug in its binary search program for 20 years. This is so humbling. Not only did the master miss this, despite proving it correct, but also the Java and C++ library authors. https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about...

ant6n 6y ago
That website is borked, half the content is off screen on mobile.
- high_priest 6y ago
  What in the world means "borked"? Is it some kind of hybrid of "botched" and "broken"?
  - owyn 6y ago
    Ha yes, exactly. There are a few different meanings based on context. But it's primarily just one of those fun sounding nonsense words that I also like to say. Not sure where I picked it up from. It is usable in any sentence as a drop in like a G-rated "fucked". There's the nonsensical swedish chef muppet catch phrase "bork bork bork", but he usually says that before everything goes wrong. There was also a judge named "Bork" who was "borked" when his nomination to the supreme court was blocked. I feel like "borked" is probably of a vintage like "fubared" which is a WW2 thing.

kencausey 6y ago

Funny. I just watched this video from 8-Bit Show and Tell last night: https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg https://youtu.be/dG_oZV6s0Zg . This bug appears to be from 1978. Of course, we have no idea if this time was the first time the bug was discovered.