Autobiography of a Defect

Hello Nerds and Geeks and the ordinary. This is the DEFECT speaking. You may also know me by my other names like Bug, Error, Fault and so on. For some of you I am a small inconvinience and for some their worst nightmare. From the early days of huge mainframes I have been the number one on the most wanted list and has been living my life as a hunting target for decades. But now the time has come when the world must listen to the truth behind the veils.

I have been called by different name and all of them have been bad. But have you ever realised or even cared to think about me. Do you know where I was before you forced me to live in your code - waiting to be found, discussed, ignored, humiliated and killed. I am an unwelcomed entity but is forced to live in your requirements, code, network and many other places unheard of, just because of your misunderstanding, lack of knowledge or simple laziness.

What you dont realise is that ultimately I am blamed for all your follies. I am the first one to take blame for all the money lost in business. A plane crashed because there was a defect, money transaction was not complete because some idiot did'nt do his job properly. I dont like staying in your code but was invited, ignored and then blamed. Is this correct? I want justice!

Life was so cool before I was inserted into the code. After that I am living a life of misery - waiting in anticipation to be found, broken into pieces, discussed in meeting rooms and calls and ultiamtely killed. I try to give you hints about my presence in the code but ignore me in log files, you ignore me when I make your system slow. This only makes me more stronger and harder. And by the time you have noticed me I have done the damage. Many a times you just take a short cut and change my looks instead of killing me. You break me into pieces hoping that you have cured us, but alas this makes us more dangerous as now each of us are capable of doing more damage single handedly.

Dumped between millions of lines of code I wait for my rescuers - Testers. These are the guardian angels who have the power to excavate me from the deepest of codes. But now a days these angels have not been spared. They have been converted to automated robots who rather than finding me they follow some predefined steps. It is like you are thrown into a sea and a rescue boat is only following the route given to them and they ignore your desparate plea for help.

I am not a selfish guy and I will be very happy if you find me, discuss me meaningfully and make a conscious effort to remove me from the code so that your application works clean and everyones happy. As long as you have accessed the risk associated with me satying in the code, I can live there happily.

Please, I have no intention of mine to stay in your code or system. I am happy outside, so don't invite me. Some of us are bit naughty and will slip into your code uninvited. For those naughty defects, support our saviors - the testers to find me and not just create a robot to follow fixed steps. Remember, I am a defect buried in your code and waiting for you to find me. Please be aware of my presence and keep your eyes open.

Waiting to be found -

Yours DEFECT :)