The thrilling saga of a database gone bad
True Tails
In which our hero relates a "True Tail" where lack of testing almost created a divorce.
Recently, I wrote that programmers typically make some of the worst testers of their own software, based on the logic that if programmers knew enough about the bugs, they would write the program correctly in the first place. Of course, this is a generalization and led to lots of discussion about unit tests, regression tests, and many other types of tests used to validate code.
On the other hand, many people agreed with me, based on experience of sending the code out to end users and hearing a programmer scream, "I never thought someone would use my code that way." To illustrate this last point, I will relate one of maddog's True Tails(TM).
The year was 1975, and I was working for a very large insurance company. We had 500,000 12-inch, nine-track tapes in our on-site tape library, numbered from 000001 to 500xxx, and each of those tapes had an external, human-readable number with the same internal machine-readable number on the tape.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 45 Now Available
The latest iteration of Fedora has arrived with Gnome 51 and KDE Plasma 6.8.
-
Linux 7.4 is "Much Healthier" Thanks to AI
At nearly 42 million lines, Linux 7.4 is the largest merge in the kernel’s history.
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.
-
DigitalOcean Ends Open Source Credits Program
In a change that has surprised many open source developers, DigitalOcean has decided to sunset its Open Source Credits Program.