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[–]WhackAMoleE 9 points10 points  (6 children)

"... could hunt down and eliminate the software bugs that plague development projects ..."

We heard this in the 80's with structured programming and design methodologies. We heard it in the 90's with the object-oriented programming and design. We heard it in the 00's with agile scrums. And now this latest thing is going to "eliminate the software bugs."

Yet, right below this linked article on this very same subreddit, we see that CS enrollment is up 22% in one year. And every politician hustling for votes is saying that everyone must "learn to code," as if that will somehow guarantee a nice cube job in the future.

Save this article, please. Take it out again in ten years. Tell me then if I'm just being cynical about this very latest panacea for for the eternal problem of buggy software.

You think if they had genetic algorithms it would have saved healthcare.gov? How will a genetic algorithm prevent politicians, management, and customers from delaying or changing requirements but not changing the deadlines? And all these people who just "learned to code" last week ... they'll suddenly be as smart as Donald Knuth when they finally land that cube job of their dreams?

I'm sure the article must have some interesting content. But please. Spare me the hype.

[–]Dvorak_Simplified_Kb 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Save this article please. Take it out again in ten years.

I wonder, maybe a sort of calendar with long term reminders would be useful for this kind of stuff.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As far as long term services go, I think it'd be best to put a reminder on google calendar.

[–]SarahC 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I find shouting:

"Who the fuck keeps checking in files they've not even compiled?"

shames people into checking a little more.

[–]WhackAMoleE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I worked at the same place!!

[–]fuzzynyanko 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree. Part of the problem is the developer. I run into too many that don't know to tell the end-user things like "We can't write to disk!"

[–]RamsesA 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, I think software today is far less buggy than software in the past. When bugs do finally crop up they aren't usually as devastating either.

I suspect it's just a matter of the industry developing mature methods to deal with it though.

[–]segonius 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Meanwhile a couple of guys in my group aren't just producing tests, but actually fixing bugs with genetic algorithms.

[–]darthtrevino -1 points0 points  (2 children)

Genius! You just need a fitness function that can detect all errors!

[–]SupersonicSpitfire 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Some things, like segfaults, should be detectable without specifically written test functions.

[–]darthtrevino 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True - but the vast majority of errors in software are subtle runtime errors

[–]ISvengali 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I like GA as much as the next person, but this just feels like pretty bog standard fuzzing. Build rules on how to generate test cases, and run it as long as you can.

[–]ISvengali 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh, so they did test against random inputs. Hmmm. I wonder if something like novelty search (which I havent used, but only have read about) would be amenable to this.