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   Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE (timwardcam@c.im)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 18:42:42 JST Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE

   • jo

   @ShadowJonathan My favourite is the second-order compiler bug.

   The compiler has a bug in how it compiles feature A. But the compiler itself uses feature A to compile feature B. So if you take a compiler with the bug in feature A, and compile it with itself, it now also has a bug in how it compiles feature B.

   Which is real fun to debug if the bug in feature A arose in the first place from a read error from a magnetic medium which the parity and/or error detection didn't detect. So you can look at the source code as much as you like, and not only does it not have a bug in how it handles feature B, but it also doesn't have a bug in how it handles feature A.

   (The lesson? A naïve eight bit checksum per block isn't enough. The witchcraft? It was a long time ago, but I *think* it only took about three of us less than two days to get to the bottom of this.)

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 18:45:16 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • jo
     @TimWardCam @ShadowJonathan I tend to call that one Ken Thompson's "Trusting Trust" meets Murphy.
     
     (And it happened to me at least once, due to bad RAM)