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ARE YOU GOING TO EAT THAT?

Thursday, November 29, 2007  

PET PEEVE #89

It's been a while since I've developed a new pet peeve but here I am with a new entry. This new one has been in the works for months as I've been reading video gaming messages, sifting for posts about skate.

A huge majority of the gaming public refers to a software defect in a game as a "glitch". I guess since I'm getting older now, this irks me to no end. At least to me, the proper term for a software defect is a "bug". In the nearly two years I was a games tester, I never heard the term "glitch" used once on a project. Without fail, the term "bug" was used universally. We had bug reports, bug counts, the bug database, showstopper bugs, rendering bugs, audio bugs and I could go on.

Even now as a software engineer nothing has changed. Developers call defects bugs and this has been my experience at two different companies. As soon as someone says or writes the word "glitch" I instantly classify that person a civilian, some dude who doesn't work in the industry.

So please, do me a favour and don't call them glitches, they're bugs. Even if you have to change:

"Erwin, you worked on a glitchy piece of crap"

to

"Erwin, you worked on a buggy piece of crap"

That's ok with me. At least it's the proper terminology.

2 Comments

posted by Erwin | 1:16 AM
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