3 ms·

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

by 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.