Re: Program bugs and Game bugs

[toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

This whole thread has gotten ridiculous.

Is it really a bug to follow an API correctly, and still get burnt?
Is the API the toolbox manual, or the toolbox code? The state of API's
in software engineering is pathetic. On Unix things are much simpler and
more conservative, but they are not at all perfect, because airtight API's
are a genuinely hard problem, and one we do not respect enough in our rush
to get the "next big thing" out the door.

May I offer the following clarifying terminology:

Wolf3D the program did not contain the bug. The toolbox did.
Wolf3D the PRODUCT was buggy because it triggered bugs in the toolbox.

It is more important that the bug be eliminated in practice than that the
"right" engineers perform the fix, or even than the fix is performed in the
"right" part of the code!

The real question is: what to do now-- should all apps which do what Wolf3D
did be urged to incorporate a fix, or should a subset of GUPP be supplied
with all of those apps? Or something else?

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu