5 ms·

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things w

by phire 3y ago

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to.

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
It does happen to Hardware. Here are two older examples: “The Intel Pentium series of CPUs had two well-known bugs discovered after it was brought to market, the FDIV bug affecting floating point division which resulted in a recall in 1994, and the F00F bug discovered in 1997 which causes the processor to stop operating until rebooted.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_bug https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_bug
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > and the F00F bug discovered in 1997 which causes the processor to stop operating until rebooted You reminded me of the Things I Won't Work With piece that observed in passing that the behavior of dioxygen difluoride was surprisingly well described by its chemical formula. ( https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-dioxygen-difluoride https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor... )
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tivert 3y ago
> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. > But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to. That's not a distinction that's relevant to this article. By "computer" it means a system composed of hardware and software (and which is almost always what "computer" is used to mean): > The presumption that computers are presumed to be operating correctly, unless there is evidence to the contrary is what lawyers call “a presumption of evidence”. > This means that a court can be satisfied that a relevant fact can be established just by computer records, unless there is evidence that the computer is not working properly. > And so when the computer record shows, for instance, a financial shortfall by postmaster or postmistress, the court will accept that as evidence of an actual shortfall - unless the defendant can show that the computer was not operating correctly. > In short, when the computer record is the essence of a prosecution case: computer says guilty.
User23 3y ago
What do you mean by works correctly? By what standard do you say the software gets things wrong? After all it's an indisputable fact that computers only ever do exactly what you tell them to.
- albert_e 3y ago
  > After all it's an indisputable fact that computers only ever do exactly what you tell them to. too broad a generalization i think. who told these computers to do what they did? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221011-how-space-weather-causes-computer-errors#:~:text=Single%20event%20upsets%20(SEUs)%20occur,corrupting%20the%20data%20stored%20there https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221011-how-space-weathe....
murderfs 3y ago
As a programmer that works on drivers, it's my experience that hardware almost never works correctly. "We'll fix it in software" might as well be the official motto of the hardware industry.
- m-ee 3y ago
  As a firmware engineer I’m horrified at the presumption that hardware is always operating correctly. Many times I’ve been told “your new firmware is broken” and the real problem is something as mundane as an improper capacitor or resistor value. Also just look at the errata sheet for any microcontroller. Hardware bugs are so prevalent we have a special term and semi standardized document to describe them.
  - amelius 3y ago
    That's funny, because this just came in: https://apnews.com/article/iphone-15-overheating-apple-software-bug-088fcf5250ee7e839930aea56dfed3fa https://apnews.com/article/iphone-15-overheating-apple-softw...
    - runeks 3y ago
      What makes you think this isn't just a software bug?
      - amelius 3y ago
        Because "too hot to handle" tells me that this should have really been prevented at the hardware level, and this is also common practice.
        andromeduck 3y ago
        Power control is all configuration. Hardware merely provider the signals and mechanisms for SW control.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
whoknowsidont 3y ago
>it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. Oh you sweet summer child. Hardware has so many little "quirks' or hacks to make it work correctly and it often doesn't! It's often expected that really low-level, "touching the metal" software makes up for these little bumps that happen quite often.
k0k0 3y ago
Your experience is quite limited. Too limited to have a meaningful opinion on this subject frankly.
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack. If you know more than someone else, that's great, but in that case please share some of what you know—without putdowns or snark—so the rest of us can learn. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- rambambram 3y ago
  Enlighten us then.
  - k0k0 3y ago
    No one else but you can provide you with experience. Hardware has both bugs (defects) and it fails, sometimes in ways not gracefully. An experienced multidisciplinary developer is certain to encounter them at some point. Depending on the discipline this may be a very common occurrence or it may be rare. Devs working at either extremes of scale are more likely to encounter these problems. Defects may go unnoticed due to software workarounds of all things Here is just one example to get you started: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/08/10/bh-2011-bit-squatting-dns-hijacking-without-exploitation/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/08/10/bh-2011-bit-squa... https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/design/confidential/products-and-solutions/processors-and-chipsets/tiger-lake/11th-generation-intel-core-processor-family-specification-update/errata-details/ https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/design/confid...
  - cf141q5325 3y ago
    A very common problem is bugs caused by cosmic radiation if you want an example. But bugs in silicon are also not rare and really difficult to catch. You really got to stick your neck out and hope you can actually proof that through stuff like debugging with electron microscopes. Especially if it becomes an issue of responsibility between different departments. The monetary stakes make this all the more difficult. Hardware bugs are simply capsuled better so people dont recognize them as such. Its the same mechanism at play as for people who assume software normally functions. They are also just unaware of the inner working. Stuff is just really complicated and people should manage their expectations. I get that going from assuming to have a solid base to no such thing existing is difficult to handle but there is no sensible way around that. Not doing so gets you stuff like the article.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. Wow there are some patronising people responding to your comment. I think this is mostly true for 95% of software and the experience of software developers. But CPUs are full of bugs that only manifest when certain code is run - perhaps the order of instructions or when in certain states. Often these are hidden/fixed in software - compilers/drivers/microcode etc.
bmitc 3y ago
> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. By hardware do you mean CPU? Also, these days, "hardware" is still something that's either got a microcontroller, FPGA, or some other thing that is eother running or was designed with software. The area is quite muddy, especially if you deal with hardware systems of a collection of various computers and hardware components. And I'm not so sure things aren't CPU or IC bugs that get bubbled up. The amount of Heisenbugs and various other transient bugs make me question that. In my experience with instrument control systems, the bug could be anywhere from a cable to the UI or anything in between. These systems had to be developed in strict layers to help isolate bugs and also workaround them.
drt5b7j 3y ago
It's appears to you this way because you're an insider in software. If you were in hardware, you would believe the opposite.
- oldgradstudent 3y ago
  No. Hardware people are fully aware of their shortcomings, but they also are fully aware that software is even worse. Far far worse.
cf141q5325 3y ago
You are describing the exact same experience people who arent programmers have with software. It usually working and being almost always problems with the user. It also leads to the same horrible misjudgements as in the article mentioned above. If you dont know what to look for you will come to erroneous convictions by ruling out the error cases you do know.

by phire 3y ago

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago

It does happen to Hardware. Here are two older examples: “The Intel Pentium series of CPUs had two well-known bugs discovered after it was brought to market, the FDIV bug affecting floating point division which resulted in a recall in 1994, and the F00F bug discovered in 1997 which causes the processor to stop operating until rebooted.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_bug https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_bug

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> and the F00F bug discovered in 1997 which causes the processor to stop operating until rebooted You reminded me of the Things I Won't Work With piece that observed in passing that the behavior of dioxygen difluoride was surprisingly well described by its chemical formula. ( https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-dioxygen-difluoride https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-wor... )
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

tivert 3y ago

> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. > But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to. That's not a distinction that's relevant to this article. By "computer" it means a system composed of hardware and software (and which is almost always what "computer" is used to mean): > The presumption that computers are presumed to be operating correctly, unless there is evidence to the contrary is what lawyers call “a presumption of evidence”. > This means that a court can be satisfied that a relevant fact can be established just by computer records, unless there is evidence that the computer is not working properly. > And so when the computer record shows, for instance, a financial shortfall by postmaster or postmistress, the court will accept that as evidence of an actual shortfall - unless the defendant can show that the computer was not operating correctly. > In short, when the computer record is the essence of a prosecution case: computer says guilty.

User23 3y ago

What do you mean by works correctly? By what standard do you say the software gets things wrong? After all it's an indisputable fact that computers only ever do exactly what you tell them to.

albert_e 3y ago
> After all it's an indisputable fact that computers only ever do exactly what you tell them to. too broad a generalization i think. who told these computers to do what they did? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221011-how-space-weather-causes-computer-errors#:~:text=Single%20event%20upsets%20(SEUs)%20occur,corrupting%20the%20data%20stored%20there https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221011-how-space-weathe....

murderfs 3y ago

As a programmer that works on drivers, it's my experience that hardware almost never works correctly. "We'll fix it in software" might as well be the official motto of the hardware industry.

m-ee 3y ago
As a firmware engineer I’m horrified at the presumption that hardware is always operating correctly. Many times I’ve been told “your new firmware is broken” and the real problem is something as mundane as an improper capacitor or resistor value. Also just look at the errata sheet for any microcontroller. Hardware bugs are so prevalent we have a special term and semi standardized document to describe them.
- amelius 3y ago
  That's funny, because this just came in: https://apnews.com/article/iphone-15-overheating-apple-software-bug-088fcf5250ee7e839930aea56dfed3fa https://apnews.com/article/iphone-15-overheating-apple-softw...
  - runeks 3y ago
    What makes you think this isn't just a software bug?
    - amelius 3y ago
      Because "too hot to handle" tells me that this should have really been prevented at the hardware level, and this is also common practice.
      - andromeduck 3y ago
        Power control is all configuration. Hardware merely provider the signals and mechanisms for SW control.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

whoknowsidont 3y ago

>it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. Oh you sweet summer child. Hardware has so many little "quirks' or hacks to make it work correctly and it often doesn't! It's often expected that really low-level, "touching the metal" software makes up for these little bumps that happen quite often.

k0k0 3y ago

Your experience is quite limited. Too limited to have a meaningful opinion on this subject frankly.

dang 3y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack. If you know more than someone else, that's great, but in that case please share some of what you know—without putdowns or snark—so the rest of us can learn. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
rambambram 3y ago
Enlighten us then.
- k0k0 3y ago
  No one else but you can provide you with experience. Hardware has both bugs (defects) and it fails, sometimes in ways not gracefully. An experienced multidisciplinary developer is certain to encounter them at some point. Depending on the discipline this may be a very common occurrence or it may be rare. Devs working at either extremes of scale are more likely to encounter these problems. Defects may go unnoticed due to software workarounds of all things Here is just one example to get you started: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/08/10/bh-2011-bit-squatting-dns-hijacking-without-exploitation/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/08/10/bh-2011-bit-squa... https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/design/confidential/products-and-solutions/processors-and-chipsets/tiger-lake/11th-generation-intel-core-processor-family-specification-update/errata-details/ https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/design/confid...
- cf141q5325 3y ago
  A very common problem is bugs caused by cosmic radiation if you want an example. But bugs in silicon are also not rare and really difficult to catch. You really got to stick your neck out and hope you can actually proof that through stuff like debugging with electron microscopes. Especially if it becomes an issue of responsibility between different departments. The monetary stakes make this all the more difficult. Hardware bugs are simply capsuled better so people dont recognize them as such. Its the same mechanism at play as for people who assume software normally functions. They are also just unaware of the inner working. Stuff is just really complicated and people should manage their expectations. I get that going from assuming to have a solid base to no such thing existing is difficult to handle but there is no sensible way around that. Not doing so gets you stuff like the article.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. Wow there are some patronising people responding to your comment. I think this is mostly true for 95% of software and the experience of software developers. But CPUs are full of bugs that only manifest when certain code is run - perhaps the order of instructions or when in certain states. Often these are hidden/fixed in software - compilers/drivers/microcode etc.

bmitc 3y ago

> As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. By hardware do you mean CPU? Also, these days, "hardware" is still something that's either got a microcontroller, FPGA, or some other thing that is eother running or was designed with software. The area is quite muddy, especially if you deal with hardware systems of a collection of various computers and hardware components. And I'm not so sure things aren't CPU or IC bugs that get bubbled up. The amount of Heisenbugs and various other transient bugs make me question that. In my experience with instrument control systems, the bug could be anywhere from a cable to the UI or anything in between. These systems had to be developed in strict layers to help isolate bugs and also workaround them.

drt5b7j 3y ago

It's appears to you this way because you're an insider in software. If you were in hardware, you would believe the opposite.

oldgradstudent 3y ago
No. Hardware people are fully aware of their shortcomings, but they also are fully aware that software is even worse. Far far worse.

cf141q5325 3y ago

You are describing the exact same experience people who arent programmers have with software. It usually working and being almost always problems with the user. It also leads to the same horrible misjudgements as in the article mentioned above. If you dont know what to look for you will come to erroneous convictions by ruling out the error cases you do know.