Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Excel Bug

Read both:

"A big Excel boo boo" (very short)

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/a-big-excel-boo-boo/

and Joel on Software explaining the bug:

http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/26b.html

Why I like these articles
  • students talk about what bugs matter (and the very different perspectives in the articles)
  • students like to hear that binary is not just theoretical, it actually comes up in an application they use
  • they discuss the difficulty and importance of testing 

1 comment:

drd said...

"In the enormity of the code, it is sometimes hard to find the little obscure bugs inside. Even the best code will always have problems with it." - Tucker Weinmann

"it takes what we have been learning in class about binary numbers and it applies it to a real life situation. It shows how a simple slip up in binary numbers can lead to a really big mess." - Elizabeth Janis

"I learned that software can include errors and I would be completely unaware - I would have trusted my version of Excel." - Jeremy Teetor