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A Taxonomy of Bugs

https://ruby0x1.github.io/machinery_blog_archive/post/a-taxonomy-of-bugs/index.html
42•lissine•9h ago

Comments

mannykannot•8h ago
Here's a step 0 for your debugging strategy: spend a few minutes thinking about what could account for the bug. Prior to its occurrence, you are thinking about what could go wrong, but now you are thinking about what did go wrong, which is a much less open-ended question.
marginalia_nu•4h ago
I've had large success by treating the bug as a binary search problem as soon as I identify an initial state that's correct and a terminal state that's incorrect. It seems like a lot of work, but that's underestimating just how fast binary searches are.

Depends of course on the nature of the bug whether it's a good strategy.

readthenotes1•8h ago
I was such a bad developer that I realized I had to automate the re-running of parts of the system to find the bugs.

Of course, the code I wrote to exercise the code I wrote had bugs, but usually I wouldn't make offsetting errors.

It didn't fix all the problems I made, but it helped. And it helped to have the humility when trying to fix code to realize I wouldn't get it the first time, so should automate replication

bheadmaster•7h ago
> I had to automate the re-running of parts of the system to find the bugs

Congratz, you've independently invented integration tests.

tough•6h ago
I don't always test but adding a lil test after finding and fixing a bug so you don't end up there again a second time is a great practice
bheadmaster•3h ago
Congratz, you've invented regression tests.
quantadev•5h ago
Congrats, you've found someone who failed to invoke a buzzword that you know.

EDIT: But Acktshally `the code I wrote to exercise the code I wrote` is a description of "Unit Testing", not integration testing.

bheadmaster•3h ago
Unit/integration tests are anything but a buzzword. And my intentions were not to belittle, but to praise.

Some actions simply make so much sense to do, that any sensible person (unaware of the concept) will start doing them given enough practice, and in process they "reinvent" a common method.

keybored•2h ago
> And my intentions were not to belittle, but to praise.

With the stock eyeroll dismissal phrase.

quantadev•1h ago
As far as you knew that guy was aware what Unit Testing was since well before you were born. lol. I'm sure he appreciates all your nice compliments.
alilleybrinker•6h ago
There's also the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE), a long-running taxonomy of software weaknesses (meaning types of bugs).

https://cwe.mitre.org/

Animats•6h ago
The Third-Party Bug

Is the party responsible for the bug bigger than you? If yes, it's your problem. If no, it's their problem.

marginalia_nu•5h ago
A subcategory of the design flaw I find quite a lot is the case where the code works exactly as intended, it's just not having the desired effect because of some erroneous premise.
djmips•2h ago
John Carmack uses a debugger

Type-constrained code generation with language models

https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09246
64•tough•2h ago•25 comments

Your fingers wrinkle the same way every time you're in the water too long

https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/5547/do-your-fingers-wrinkle-the-same-way-every-time-youre-in-the-water-too-long-new-research-says-yes
16•gnabgib•1h ago•0 comments

Flattening Rust's Learning Curve

https://corrode.dev/blog/flattening-rusts-learning-curve/
47•birdculture•2h ago•20 comments

Branch Privilege Injection: Exploiting branch predictor race conditions

https://comsec.ethz.ch/research/microarch/branch-privilege-injection/
319•alberto-m•7h ago•127 comments

Starcloud

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/starcloud
123•wiley1454•4h ago•239 comments

Map of Palaeohispanic Coins and Inscriptions

http://hesperia.ucm.es/consulta_hesperia/mapas.php
8•brendanashworth•27m ago•0 comments

Build real-time knowledge graph for documents with LLM

https://cocoindex.io/blogs/knowledge-graph-for-docs/
63•badmonster•4h ago•11 comments

Failed Soviet Venus lander Kosmos 482 crashes to Earth after 53 years in orbit

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/failed-soviet-venus-lander-kosmos-482-crashes-to-earth-after-53-years-in-orbit
98•taubek•3d ago•62 comments

Google is building its own DeX: First look at Android's Desktop Mode

https://www.androidauthority.com/android-desktop-mode-leak-3550321/
193•logic_node•10h ago•159 comments

Show HN: HelixDB – Open-source vector-graph database for AI applications (Rust)

https://github.com/HelixDB/helix-db/
114•GeorgeCurtis•7h ago•50 comments

PDF to Text, a challenging problem

https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_119_pdf/
220•ingve•9h ago•124 comments

Multiple security issues in GNU Screen

https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/05/12/1
330•st_goliath•13h ago•202 comments

A tool to verify estimates, II: a flexible proof assistant

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/05/09/a-tool-to-verify-estimates-ii-a-flexible-proof-assistant/
12•jjgreen•3d ago•0 comments

Launch HN: Miyagi (YC W25) turns YouTube videos into online, interactive courses

157•bestwillcui•11h ago•86 comments

Garbage collection of object storage at scale

https://www.warpstream.com/blog/taking-out-the-trash-garbage-collection-of-object-storage-at-massive-scale
35•ko_pivot•3d ago•6 comments

It Awaits Your Experiments

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11511
124•pavel_lishin•9h ago•34 comments

Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat

https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
4•sohkamyung•45m ago•0 comments

Cardiac: A CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation [pdf]

https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/museum/CARDIAC_manual.pdf
14•throwaway71271•2h ago•5 comments

Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?

466•amanchanda•15h ago•286 comments

How (memory) safe is Zig? (2021)

https://www.scattered-thoughts.net/writing/how-safe-is-zig/
17•vortex_ape•2h ago•16 comments

Y Combinator says Google is a monopolist, no comment about its OpenAI ties

https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/y-combinator-says-google-is-a-monopolist-that-has-stunted-the-startup-ecosystem/
106•mastazi•2h ago•26 comments

OpenTelemetry protocol with Apache Arrow

https://opentelemetry.io/blog/2025/otel-arrow-phase-2/
55•tanelpoder•6h ago•13 comments

The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1922100771392520710
558•turrini•14h ago•541 comments

I learned Snobol and then wrote a toy Forth

https://ratfactor.com/snobol/
114•ingve•2d ago•30 comments

Turritopsis dohrnii: Immortal jellyfish

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/immortal-jellyfish-secret-to-cheating-death.html
30•vinnyglennon•4d ago•6 comments

When graphic design saves lives

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/05/when-graphic-design-saves-lives/
5•gnabgib•3d ago•0 comments

Using obscure graph theory to solve programming languages problems

https://reasonablypolymorphic.com/blog/solving-lcsa/
26•matt_d•4h ago•3 comments

Membrane: Media Framework for Elixir

https://membrane.stream/
112•lawik•3d ago•35 comments

Insurers launch cover for losses caused by AI chatbot errors

https://www.ft.com/content/1d35759f-f2a9-46c4-904b-4a78ccc027df
107•jmacd•2d ago•41 comments

In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

https://wqtz.bearblog.dev/high-stress-job-relationships/
283•wqtz•11h ago•178 comments