4 ms·

> "I believe that it's just a mistake and I feel very bad for whomever might have slipped" There has been such a rush from many places to cast this as a "mista

by wreegab 13y ago

> "I believe that it's just a mistake and I feel very bad for whomever might have slipped" There has been such a rush from many places to cast this as a "mistake". We just don't know whether this was deliberate or a mistake, anything else is just an opinion. I don't see one explanation being less likely than the other, it's annoying to see one explanation being pushed more than the other.

dmur 13y ago
Is it possible that this bug was deliberately planted? Sure. Is it equally likely that this bug was deliberately planted as it is that the bug was a mistake? I say no, Occam's razor being the main reason for making that distinction.
- sitkack 13y ago
  Occams's razor is a pithy statement, not a fact, not proven theory. Pithy statements don't make things more true than non-pithy statements.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_inductive_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_induct...
    - sitkack 13y ago
      Not that a link to wikipedia is even a complete sentence but having the most huffman compressible answer doesn't make it the correct one. From the wikipedia entry on Occam's Razor. > In the scientific method, Occam's Razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result.
LnxPrgr3 13y ago
If anything, I'd assume both Apple and the NSA can find people who can sneak an intentional bug in that's a lot harder to spot than an extra "goto fail;". I've also seen enough silly bugs (1) result from merges or other tedious mechanical changes, and (2) escape detection in code review that I don't find it that hard to believe this was unintentional. It's amazing how elusive the obvious can be when your mind's on something else. Given that, I personally assume good faith until there's significant reason to doubt that assumption. Here's an embarrassingly stupid bug I created (or rather, the one-line patch that fixes it): https://github.com/LnxPrgr3/message_queue/commit/b21944ab63ff987cab6c12947f6383cf83c3ef36 https://github.com/LnxPrgr3/message_queue/commit/b21944ab63f...

by wreegab 13y ago

dmur 13y ago

Is it possible that this bug was deliberately planted? Sure. Is it equally likely that this bug was deliberately planted as it is that the bug was a mistake? I say no, Occam's razor being the main reason for making that distinction.

sitkack 13y ago
Occams's razor is a pithy statement, not a fact, not proven theory. Pithy statements don't make things more true than non-pithy statements.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_inductive_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomonoff%27s_theory_of_induct...
  - sitkack 13y ago
    Not that a link to wikipedia is even a complete sentence but having the most huffman compressible answer doesn't make it the correct one. From the wikipedia entry on Occam's Razor. > In the scientific method, Occam's Razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result.

LnxPrgr3 13y ago

If anything, I'd assume both Apple and the NSA can find people who can sneak an intentional bug in that's a lot harder to spot than an extra "goto fail;". I've also seen enough silly bugs (1) result from merges or other tedious mechanical changes, and (2) escape detection in code review that I don't find it that hard to believe this was unintentional. It's amazing how elusive the obvious can be when your mind's on something else. Given that, I personally assume good faith until there's significant reason to doubt that assumption. Here's an embarrassingly stupid bug I created (or rather, the one-line patch that fixes it): https://github.com/LnxPrgr3/message_queue/commit/b21944ab63ff987cab6c12947f6383cf83c3ef36 https://github.com/LnxPrgr3/message_queue/commit/b21944ab63f...