{"id":1776,"date":"2024-08-18T15:52:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-18T15:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2024-08-18T16:31:36","modified_gmt":"2024-08-18T16:31:36","slug":"the-origins-of-bug-and-debugging-in-computing-and-engineering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/the-origins-of-bug-and-debugging-in-computing-and-engineering\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origins of ‘Bug’ and ‘Debugging’ in Computing and Engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ehsan Shams<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During these six fascinating weeks at SGI, I have said and heard the words “bug” and “debugging” so often that if I had an inch for every time, I could go from Egypt to Tahiti and back a few dozen times. Haha! As an etymology enthusiast, I couldn’t resist digging into the origins of these terms. Here\u2019s what I discovered.

The use of the term “bug” in engineering and technology contexts dates back to at least the 19th century. The term was used by Thomas Edison in a letter written in 1878 to Tivadar Pusk\u00e1s here<\/a>, in which Edison referred to minor engineering flaws or difficulties as “bugs,” implying that these small issues were natural in the process of invention and experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, Edison wrote about the challenges of refining his inventions in this letter, stating:

“It has been just so in all of my inventions. The first step is an intuition\u2014and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise\u2014this thing gives out and [it is] then that ‘bugs’\u2014as such little faults and difficulties are called\u2014show themselves, and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success\u2014or failure\u2014is certainly reached.”<\/strong>
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Thomas Edison and His ‘Insomnia Squad’: Debugging Inventions All Night and Napping Through the Day. Photo: Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The term gained further prominence in the mid-20th century, especially in computing when engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University in 1947, and found that the computer was malfunctioning. Upon investigation, Grace Hopper<\/a> discovered that a moth had become trapped in one of the machine’s relays (Relay #70 on Panel \u201cF\u201d of the Harvard Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator), causing a problem, and took a photo of it and documented it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Harvard Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The engineers removed the moth and taped it into the log book with the note: \u201cFirst actual case of a bug being found.\u201d<\/strong> While the term “bug” had already been in use to describe technical issues or glitches, this incident provided a literal example of the term, and it is often credited with popularizing the concept of “de-bugging” in computer science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The logbook, complete with the taped moth, is preserved in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a notable piece of computing history. This incident symbolically linked the term “bug” with computer errors in popular culture and the history of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out that the term “bug” has a rich etymology, originating in Middle English where it referred to a ghost or hobgoblin that troubled and scared people. By the 16th century, “bug” started to be used to describe insects, particularly those that were seen as pests, such as bedbugs which cause discomfort, then in the 19th century, engineers adopted “bug” as a metaphor for small flaws or defects in machinery, likening these issues to tiny pests that could disrupt a system’s operation and cause discomfot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hilarious how the word “bug” still sends shivers down our spines\u2014back then, it was ghosts and goblins, and now it could be a missing bracket hiding somewhere in a hundred-something-line program, a variable you forgot to declare, or an infinite loop that makes your code run forever!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Edison, T. (1878). Letter to Tivadar Pusk\u00e1s<\/em>. The Thomas Edison Papers. Rutgers University. https:\/\/edisondigital.rutgers.edu\/document\/D7821ZAO#?xywh=-2%2C-183%2C940%2C1090<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. National Geographic Education. (n.d.). World\u2019s first computer bug<\/em>. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https:\/\/education.nationalgeographic.org\/resource\/worlds-first-computer-bug<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Hopper, G. M. (1987). The Mark II computer and the first ‘bug’. Proceedings of the ACM History of Programming Languages Conference<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n


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    By Ehsan Shams During these six fascinating weeks at SGI, I have said and heard the words “bug” and “debugging” so often that if I had an inch for every time, I could go from Egypt to Tahiti and back a few dozen times. Haha! As an etymology enthusiast, I couldn’t resist digging into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89],"ppma_author":[29],"class_list":["post-1776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-etymology"],"authors":[{"term_id":29,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"cap-ehsan-ali","display_name":"ehsan.ali","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1776"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/summergeometry.org\/sgi2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}