The B-U-G that roared??

[Robb Ryniak]

I don't know about anyone else but I'm REALLY getting tired of people in positions
of influence (especially media) perpetuating ignorance. It is the ignorance
of the masses that contributes the most towards unjustified hysteria, making
journalists who perpetuate such ignorance guilty of unimaginable irresponsibility.

What bit of ignorance am I inflamed about today? Calling the ILOVEYOU virus
a "bug". The two words, when referring to computers, are NOT even remotely
related. As all of us in the tech world know, a bug is (simplistically)
a programming error... some programmer wrote code that he/she thought would
work, however, under some rare condition, it did not. Bugs are NOT "contagious".
However, viruses ARE "contagious"... they duplicate themselves in some fashion
or another. Many viruses are essentially harmless, some are quite devastating.
Viruses are small programs intentially written to behave the way they do...
by some loser who thinks its cool to gain noteriety among his/her loser pals
by thrashing other peoples' stuff.

For those of us who know the difference, let's be plainly clear about the
distinction. It was the lack of clarification and understanding that contributed
most to the Y2K scare (which of course was a type of BUG, not a virus).
Let's be responsible!

[Job van Zuijlen]

BUG, like in LOVE BUG... Besides being responsible,
it's good to keep a sense of humor in these troubled times.

Job van Zuijlen

"Robb Ryniak" <rcryniak@speech-interface.com> wrote:
>
>I don't know about anyone else but I'm REALLY getting tired of people in
positions
>of influence (especially media) perpetuating ignorance. It is the ignorance
>of the masses that contributes the most towards unjustified hysteria, making
>journalists who perpetuate such ignorance guilty of unimaginable irresponsibility.
>
>What bit of ignorance am I inflamed about today? Calling the ILOVEYOU virus
>a "bug". The two words, when referring to computers, are NOT even remotely
>related. As all of us in the tech world know, a bug is (simplistically)
>a programming error... some programmer wrote code that he/she thought would
>work, however, under some rare condition, it did not. Bugs are NOT "contagious".
> However, viruses ARE "contagious"... they duplicate themselves in some
fashion
>or another. Many viruses are essentially harmless, some are quite devastating.
> Viruses are small programs intentially written to behave the way they do...
>by some loser who thinks its cool to gain noteriety among his/her loser
pals
>by thrashing other peoples' stuff.
>
>For those of us who know the difference, let's be plainly clear about the
>distinction. It was the lack of clarification and understanding that contributed
>most to the Y2K scare (which of course was a type of BUG, not a virus).

>Let's be responsible!

[Stefan Grünwedel]

"Job van Zuijlen" <zuijlen@attglobal.net> wrote:
>
>BUG, like in LOVE BUG... Besides being responsible,
>it's good to keep a sense of humor in these troubled times.
>
>Job van Zuijlen


Indeed. It's "only" a headline, for chrissakes.

Truth be told, I like movies. I was thinking of the 1959 comedy with Peter
Sellers, called "The Mouse That Roared," when I thought of the title for
my op-ed.

The technical distinction between "bug" and "virus" aside, bugs often annoy
and ILOVEYOU was definitely annoying.