4 ms·

They really should. I've been programming over 20 years and don't think I've seen a program without at least a few defects. A couple have come close, those are

• gravescale 2y ago
  Show me a program that has no bugs and I'll show you a program that does nothing at all! Even most Hello Worlds don't check the pipe was written to correctly. And now we get into "well actually that's technically not a bug because it is not in the spec" and if we're finding the need to split that hair, we can hardly be talking about some mythically perfect software.
  • richardw 2y ago
    You’re not wrong but Knuth’s programs have very few bugs and do a shitload. “The reward for coding errors found in Knuth's TeX and Metafont programs (as distinguished from errors in Knuth's books) followed an audacious scheme inspired by the wheat and chessboard problem,[10] starting at $2.56, and doubling every year until it reached $327.68.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check
  • re-thc 2y ago
    > Show me a program that has no bugs They're features!
  • epr 2y ago
    > Even most Hello Worlds don't check the pipe was written to correctly. The word for this is not "perfect", but "overengineered"
  • npsimons 2y ago
    > Show me a program that has no bugs and I'll show you a program that does nothing at all! "Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work."