Heisenbug

#1

Post by crisp » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

Heisenbug
en.wikipedia.org

Re: Heisenbug

#2

Post by d33 » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 8:21 AM UTC

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161

I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

Re: Heisenbug

#3

Post by iagooar » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 8:42 AM UTC

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

Isn't it considered a bad practice already? But same as with regular bugs, complexity is not something one can just stop doing. It's something to actively manage and take care of.

Re: Heisenbug

#4

Post by slx26 » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

Probably 'bug' is not the best word, but many programmers definitely consider excessive complexity as 'bad design' (unless complexity is inherently unavoidable due to the very nature of the problem).

Re: Heisenbug

#5

Post by lordnacho » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 9:01 AM UTC

Every coder at some stage has run into this, right?

- A bug that disappears when you try to add some cout- Everything looks correct in debug, where (as mentioned) the variables are initialised to nice values like 0. When you compile with -O3, you get really large values instead.

- A bug that is rare enough that you have to run the program for a long while before it happens. And when it does, you haven't logged the relevant information.

- A bug that only manifests when you're not trying to show a colleague.

Re: Heisenbug

#6

Post by ketralnis » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 9:25 AM UTC

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

Search that page for “open office will never print on Tuesdays” to find the good bit

Re: Heisenbug

#7

Post by nosuchthing » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 9:53 AM UTC

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

See also: "the network that ate my font"

http://verticalsysadmin.com/blog/sysadmin-war-story-the-netw...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15258238

tldr; printers have a hardware cache for fonts that's cleared when rebooted, havoc ensues

Re: Heisenbug

#8

Post by digi_owl » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 10:04 AM UTC

slx26 wrote: post #4

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

Probably 'bug' is not the best word, but many programmers definitely consider excessive complexity as 'bad design' (unless complexity is inherently unavoidable due to the very nature of the problem).

And others pile it on in the name of "user friendliness" or "security"...

Re: Heisenbug

#9

Post by knocte » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 10:12 AM UTC

If you hate heisenbugs, use Functional Programming (or data-race-safe langs such as Rust). It will kill 99.99% of them.

Re: Heisenbug

#10

Post by jwilk » Sun, Feb 25, 2018, 10:22 AM UTC

d33 wrote: post #2

Obligatory: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161 I wonder if at one point we'll end up with a crisis that will make us see excessive complexity as a bug on its own.

LP#255161 is not a heisenbug.