Fatal Defect: Chasing Killer Computer Bugs by Peterson, Ivars (1996) Paperback

by Ivars Peterson

In Fatal Chasing Killer Computer Bugs , Ivars Peterson describes dozens and dozens of hoary computer bugs and gives biographical sketches of the bug detectives who located and fixed them. This book, which reads like a novel, is both entertaining and informative. Many of the bugs that Peterson discusses are not in computer programs per se but in the human systems that run and operate the computers. Very often the operator fails to understand what the computer program requires as input and types in an incorrect command. The computer then executes the command, with potentially disastrous results. Fatal Defects has important lessons for both those who design computers and those who use them.

Genres: Computers, Nonfiction, History, Technology

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wanted more horror stories

Bugs in code that caused disasters. But spent very little time on interesting bugs. Never got in depth, doesn't retell any tales (was hoping for something a little more like Cuckoo's Egg), don’t get to know any 'characters.' Spent a lot of time on whether you can prove software works 100% correctly (you can't).

[Ushan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories of many famous software bugs and bug-prone systems: the Therac-25 radiation machine that killed patients, the crash-prone Airbus, the Patriot missile battery that missed Iraqi SCUDs because of an insufficiently accurate internal clock. Computer safety expert Nancy Leveson is quoted many times; I took her class in 1998 (and told her of the most bizarre bug I had introduced up to then) and recommend her book Safeware over this one. One small correction: Velvel is not a childhood nickname of William Kahan, but simply the Yiddish variant of his name.

[Mark Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more software engineering oriented than software bug stories. Good insight, a little dated.

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite dated.

[Danny Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ivars Peterson quickly guides us through what was painstaking drudgery to discover the tiny errors costing lives, lots of money and confidence in trusted systems. We see how bright and hard-working people make deadly mistakes. He takes us to the door of the consortium, of which he is a member, that for years has struggled with the sticky problem of debugging code before the bugs bring down a system. Entertaining and frightening because it is true. Take it from the expert.

[Alejandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just as other reviewers, I was expecting more detailed anecdotes. It's still an interesting read, but I guess the title of the book is misleading.