What's Up Doc??

Another in the occasional post from elsewhere. This time, simple-talk (no surprise there) with thread on bugs. Herewith my contribution, because the issue of buggy software can't be divorced from the application architecture and data language.


Ultimately there are two categories of bugs:
A) those caused by stupidity, inattention, carelessness, etc.
B) those that are the result of extending the developer's/team's experience

The entire ecosystem around each is necessarily different, and there are multiple approachess.

The A variety will be dealt with as the ethos of the organization dictates; anywhere from fired on first mistake to employed forever out of harm's way. Detecting such bugs should be possible with known testing harnesses/practices.

The B variety is more interesting.

For those in the BCNF realm, much of what passes for "new technology" in data stores and processing is VSAM redux, which brings with it the COBOL RBAR mentality, irregardless of the source language. This POV is wrapped in whatever jargon is native: NoSql, Hadoop, Map/Reduce/BigData/foobar. But the fact remains that coders are implementing ACID (if they care at all about their data) in some (high-level) language outside the storage engine.

Whether the organization realizes its mistake, and implements engine side processing, a la Phil's current article, or undertakes to use the FOTM client side framework, the coders are left in unexplored territory.

Left unexplored, generally, is an analysis of what architecture (engine side vs. client side vs. application language vs. database engine [not all do all things well]) is the least prone to both type A and type B errors for the application in hand.

Declarative languages (SQL, Prolog) just tend toward fewer errors. SQL is dependent on schema quality, and coders tend to view schema specification as a low value, unimportant task. Certainly not one for which specific expertise and experience is required; any coder can do it.

The bugs that matter, which mess up the datastore, are just less likely if processing stays in the engine. Bugs which consist of ugly fonts, not so much.

As to IT managers, again, two categories: those that were and are technically superior, and those who never were. The former, albeit rarely do they exist, generally get more done. The latter do awesome Power Points.