Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Buggy |
BuggyAdjective1. Informal or slang terms for mentally irregular. 2. Infested with bugs. Noun1. A small lightweight carriage; drawn by a single horse. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "buggy" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1868. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Building & Civil Engineering | Buggy or concrete cart: a two-wheeled or motor-driven cart, usually rubber-tyred, which carries up to 6 cu. ft of concrete from a mixer or a concrete hopper to the forms. Source: European Union. (references) |
Literature | Buggy A light vehicle without a hood, drawn by one horse. (Hindustani, baghi. ). Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Mining | A. A four-wheeled steel car used for hauling coal to and from chutes. b. A mine car of small dimensions, sometimes used in thin beds c. Slang for a shuttle car. (references) |
Public Administration | The official vehicle of the chief officer of a fire department. Source: European Union. (references) |
Slang in 1811 | BUGGY. A one-horse chaise. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Sports & Leisure | Chariot sur lequel on transporte le sac de golf sur le parcours. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Buggy can be another word for cart.
Buggy can also mean infested with bugs.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Buggy."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A computer bug is a fault in a computer program which prevents it from working correctly. Bugs arise from mistakes in either a program's source code or its design. It is said that there are bugs in all useful computer programs, but well-written programs contain relatively few bugs, and these bugs typically do not prevent the program from performing its task. Buggy programs are those which contain a large number of bugs, and/or bugs which seriously interfere with the program's functionality.
Overview
Bugs can have a wide variety of effects, with varying levels of inconvenience to the user of the program. Some bugs have only a subtle effect on the program's functionality, and may thus lie undetected for a long time. More serious bugs may cause the program to crash or freeze. In some operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, crashing or freezing programs may render the computer unusable until it is rebooted (see blue screen of death.) Other bugs lead to security problems; for example, a common type of bug called a buffer overflow may allow a malicious user to execute a new program that is normally not allowed to run.
The results of bugs may be extremely serious. In 1962, an omitted hyphen in a Fortran program led to the loss of the Mariner 1 Venus probe, which cost over $80 million; Arthur C. Clarke dubbed this "the most expensive hyphen in history". In 1996, the European Space Agency's prototype Ariane 5 rocket was destroyed less than a minute after launch due to a bug in the on-board guidance computer, costing over US$1 billion.
Etymology
The term "bug" derives from hardware engineering jargon, in which it refers to errors in hardware. The term is often (but erroneously) credited to Grace Hopper, through an anecdote where she determined the reason for a malfunction on an early electromechanical computer was an actual insect stuck between the contacts of the relays that drove the device:
Photo of first computer bug.
Click for larger version
Despite the colourfulness of the above anecdote, it is known that the use of the word "bug" to describe defects in mechanical systems dates back to at least the 1870s. Thomas Edison, for one, used the term in his notebooks.
- In 1946, when Hopper was released from active duty, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II and Mark III. She traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book. Stemming from the first bug, today we call errors or glitch's in a program a bug. [1]
Preventing bugs
Bugs are a consequence of the nature of the programming task. Some bugs arise from simple oversights made when a computer programmer writes source code carelessly. Many off-by-one errors fall into this category. Other bugs arise from unintended interactions between different parts of a computer program. This happens because computer programs are often complex, so that programmers are unable to mentally keep track of every possible way in which different parts can interact. Many race condition bugs fall into this category.
The computer software industry has put a great deal of effort into finding methods for preventing programmers from inadvertently introducing bugs while writing software. These include:
There is also a great amount of efforts devoted to detecting bugs, mostly around the concepts of type systems and program verification.
- Programming techniques. Bugs often create inconsistencies in the internal data of a running program. Programs can be written to check the consistency of their own internal data while running. If an inconsistency is encountered, the program can immediately halt, so that the bug can be located and fixed. Alternatively, the program can simply inform the user, attempt to correct the inconsistency, and continue running.
- Development methodologies. There are several schemes for managing programmer activity, so that fewer bugs are produced. Many of these fall under the discipline of software engineering (which addresses software design issues as well.)
- Programming language support. Programming languages often include features which help programmers deal with bugs, such as exception handling. In addition, many recently-invented languages have deliberately excluded features which can easily lead to bugs. For example, the Java programming language does not support pointer arithmetic.
Debugging
Finding and fixing bugs, or "debugging", has always been a major part of computer programming. Maurice Wilkes, an early computing pioneer, describes his realization in the late 1940s that much of the rest of his life would be spent finding mistakes in his own programs. As computer programs grow more complex, bugs become more common and difficult to fix. Often, programmers spend more time and effort finding and fixing bugs than writing new code.
Usually, the most difficult part of debugging is locating the erroneous part of the source code. Once the mistake is found, correcting it is usually easy. Programs known as debuggers exist to help programmers locate bugs. However, even with the aid of a debugger, locating bugs is something of an art.
Typically, the first step in locating a bug is finding a way to reproduce it easily. Once the bug is reproduced, the programmer can use a debugger or some other tool to monitor the execution of the program in the faulty region, and (eventually) find the problem. However, it is not always easy to reproduce bugs. Some bugs are triggered by inputs to the program which may be difficult for the programmer to re-create. Other bugs may disappear when the program is run with a debugger; these are heisenbugs (humorously named after the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.)
List of computer bugs
The following is a list of famous computer bugs:
Space exploration
- ESA Ariane 5 taking off (1996 June 4).
- NASA Apollo 11 landing problem (1969 July 20).
- NASA Mariner 1 FORTRAN's DO missing decimal comma bug (1962 July 22).
- NASA Mars Climate Orbiter (1999) failed to convert yards to meters.
- NASA Voyager 2 (1986 January 24).
- Phobos 1 (1988 September 10).
Medical
- The Therac-25 accidents (1985-1987), quite possibly the most serious computer-related failure ever in terms of human life lost.
Computing
- Pentium FDIV bug
- The year 2000 problem, popularly known as the "Y2K bug", spawned fears of worldwide economic collapse and an industry of consultants providing last-minute fixes
Science fiction
- Douglas Adams' Deep Thought's 42 - "Ah But what is the question bug.
- Arthur C. Clarke's HAL 9000's bug.
Common types of computer bugs
- Divide by zero
- Infinite loops
- Arithmetic overflow or underflow
- Exceeding array bounds
- Using an unitialized variable
- Accessing memory not owned (Access violation)
- Memory leak
- Stack overflow or underflow
- Buffer overflow
- Deadlock
- Off by one error
External links and References
See also: Bugzilla
- Thomas Huckle of TU München extensive page on computer bugs: http://wwwzenger.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/persons/huckle/bugse.html
- Nachum Dershowitz's page on computer bugs: http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachumd/verify/horror.html
- N. Leveson and C. Turner: An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents: http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html
- Rose, Barbara Wade: Fatal Dose - Radiation Deaths linked to AECL Computer Errors (producers of the Therac-25): http://www.ccnr.org/fatal_dose.html
- picture of the first computer bug
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Computer bug."
Synonyms: BuggySynonyms: balmy (adj), barmy (adj), bats (adj), batty (adj), bonkers (adj), cracked (adj), crackers (adj), daft (adj), dotty (adj), fruity (adj), haywire (adj), kookie (adj), kooky (adj), loco (adj), loony (adj), loopy (adj), nuts (adj), nutty (adj), wacky (adj), roadster (n). (additional references) |
| Synonyms by domain: buggies (transportation), trucked (metallurgy). |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Vehicle | Dogcart, trap, whitechapel, buggy, four-in-hand, unicorn, random, tandem; shandredhan, char-a-bancs. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Buggy |
| English words defined with "buggy": Buggies, buggy whip ♦ tongue twister. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "buggy": BOOBY HUTCH, BUCKET OPERATOR, buglix ♦ CAKE FORMER, concrete cart, CUTTER I ♦ DYNAMITE RECLAIMER, DYNAMITE-CARTRIDGE CRIMPER, DYNAMITE-PACKING-MACHINE FEEDER ♦ former puller ♦ HUMIDIFIER OPERATOR ♦ KETTLE OPERATOR ♦ LABORER, PRESTRESSED CONCRETE ♦ metal pourer ♦ powder shoveler ♦ slag car ♦ TANDEM ♦ waste-house operator. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "buggy": Concord buggy. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Buggy" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. German (buggy). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | There's sometimes a buggy. How many drivers does a buggy have (Mulholland Dr.; writing credit: David Lynch) They got no fait in me, or my buggy. Yet, its the same cab, the same driver (Harvey; writing credit: Mary Chase;) I've always thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely (Gone with the Wind; writing credit: Margaret Mitchell; Sidney Howard) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Speed Buggy (1973) Baby Buggy Bunny (1954) Paramount Pacemaker: The Littlest Expert on Horse and Buggy Days (1953) Thanks for the Buggy Ride (1928) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Yolo Buggy used to transport and shade base measuring instruments Yolo Base Line, one of the most accurate measured in the Nineteenth Century Base Line party of George Davidson. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |  | Building party leaving Lampasas, Texas J.S. Bilby in light buggy. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |
 | The marsh buggy in the background is a specialized piece of equipment used to move the dredge pipe and other equipment around. The buggy is also used to grade deposited sediments to appropriate elevations. Credit: NOAA Restoration Center. |  | A piece of specialized equipment called a marsh buggy. The buggy was used to bring sediments to the newly created marsh. Credit: NOAA Restoration Center. |
 | Buggy used by the Amish in Davis County, Iowa. Credit: Lynn Betts. |  | Abandoned at Charleston, South Carolina, after the city's capture by Federal forces, 1865. Note buggy and house in the background. Credit: NAVY. |
 | Horse and buggy trotting along the road with man approaching. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | He had milked the cow and was washing down the old buggy. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Taft pushing a baby buggy. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Thanks for the buggy ride, Frank. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Buggy flower" by Peter Hamza Commentary: "Little pink flowers with a bug." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption |
 | Carriage; buggy; trot. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Buggy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Buggy" is used about 200 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 200 | 21,580 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "buggy" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Buggy | Last name | 130 | 65,272 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "buggy": baby buggy ♦ beach buggy ♦ Buggy cultivator ♦ Buggy plow ♦ buggy whip ♦ Concord buggy ♦ dune buggy ♦ ingot buggy ♦ marsh buggy ♦ swamp buggy. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "buggy": buggy-designs. | |
Ending with "buggy": baby-buggy, dune-buggy, horse-and-buggy. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
dune buggy | 1,416 | dune buggy plan | 48 |
buggy | 394 | swamp buggy | 48 |
steam buggy | 194 | fiberglass dune buggy | 46 |
horse buggy | 119 | buggy.com dune | 43 |
dune buggy sale | 117 | baby buggy | 42 |
dune buggy part | 101 | bass buggy | 41 |
rail buggy | 97 | buggy mini | 40 |
beach buggy | 90 | 1 8 buggy scale | 36 |
vw dune buggy | 80 | buggy speed | 33 |
dune buggy kit | 75 | manx dune buggy | 32 |
dune buggy frame | 68 | buggy unlimited | 29 |
buggy off road | 67 | mini dune buggy | 25 |
kite buggy | 64 | volkswagen dune buggy | 25 |
buggy board | 63 | rc buggy | 23 |
sand buggy | 59 | buggy rock | 23 |
mountain buggy | 53 | baja buggy | 20 |
vw buggy | 52 | bag buggy | 20 |
build dune buggy | 51 | buggy dune free plan | 20 |
amish buggy | 50 | horse drawn buggy | 19 |
buggy bagg | 50 | body buggy dune | 19 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "buggy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | plot me çimkë, modul hënor, kaloshin (carriole, carryall, chaise, cutter, gig, hansom cab, trap). (various references) | |
Arabic | البوجية, بوجي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | файтон теглен от един кон, кабриолет (cabriolet), бебешка количка, багажна количка (truck), прояден от червеи (worm-eaten, wormy), подплата само до плещите, двуколка (cabriolet, cart, gig, tumbrel, tumbril, whisky). (various references) | |
Chinese | 儿童车 (Buggies). (various references) | |
Czech | bryèka, automobil (automobile, car). (various references) | |
Danish | beach-buggy (beach buggy), strandvogn (beach buggy). (various references) | |
Dutch | buggy (beach buggy), diep lader (truck). (various references) | |
Farsi | نوعی درشکه سبک یک اسبه , حشره دار. (various references) | |
Finnish | rantakirppu (beach buggy). (various references) | |
French | bogie, boghei, voiture d'enfant, voiture de commandement, chariot des dunes (beach buggy), chariot, chargeuse sur pneus, chargeuse sur pneumatiques. (various references) | |
German | kinderwagen (baby carriage, baby-stroller, buggies, perambulator, pram, pushchair, stroller), buggy (beach buggy). (various references) | |
Greek | αμαξάκι (dog cart, waggonette). (various references) | |
Hebrew | רכב לנסיעה על חול. (various references) | |
Hungarian | poloskás, bricska (shay), homokfutó, féleszű (half-wit, off one's crumpet), bogaras (crazed, crazy, dorky, eccentric, fanciful, have a little finger ache, kinky, maggoty). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kereta roda dua. (various references) | |
Italian | passeggino (pushchair, stroller), carrozzino (cart, sidecar), carrello per vagone (truck), calessino (gig), calesse (barouche, calash, chaise, curricle, fly, gig, trap). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | バイヤー法 (all-terrain vehicle, baccalaureat, bacteria, bacteriophage, Bagdad, baggy look, bagpipe, baguette, basilisk, bass, bassoon, bath, baumkuchen, Bayer process, bazaar, bilingual, bind, binder, binding, bounce, bound, bow side, bucket, budget, bug, bug fix, bug list, bug report, bugbear, bus, by-line, holidays, honey wagon, pail, sand buggy, surf clam, vacation, vacuum, vacuum car, vacuum cleaner, vagabond, vagina). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | バギー . (various references) | |
Korean | 2 륜 마차 (Buggies). (various references) | |
Manx | carthanagh, buggee. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | uggybay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | veículo capaz de circular sobre as dunas (beach buggy), infestado. (various references) | |
Romanian | trãsurã pentru douã persoane. (various references) | |
Russian | кабриолет (cabriolet, gig). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | lud (berserk, bonkers, crazy, daft, demented, distraught, head: off his head, insane, loco, lunatic, mad, nut, nut: off one's nut, nuts), lake kočije. (various references) | |
Spanish | calesa (calash, caleche, gig). (various references) | |
Swedish | enspännare (gig). (various references) | |
Turkish | böcekli, iki tekerlekli hafif araba, delice (bughouse, crazily, insane, insensate, madly, maniacally, splitting), akılsız (bughouse, emptyheaded, fatuous, feather brain, feather-brained, fool, foolish, goofy, gormless, ill-advised, inexpedient, irrational, mindless, preposterous, unintelligent, unreasoning, unwise, vacant, witless), çocuk arabası (baby carriage, go cart, perambulator, pram). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | кабріолет (cab, cabriolet, gig), вагонетка (car, carriage, trolley, waggon, wagon), легка дитяча коляска. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | xe một ngựa, xe độc mã (carriole), nhiều rệp, có rệp. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Buggy" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Beggy, bluggy, boggly, boggo, bouggie, budgy, bugby, Bugg, Bugge, buggeys, buggie, Buggs, bugi, bugie, Bugio, bugsy, bugy, bungy, Burgdy, guggi. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "buggy" (pronounced bu"gē) |
| 3 | -u" g ē | muggy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-g-g-u-y" | |
-2 letters: bug, buy, guy. | |
-3 letters: by. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-g-g-u-y" | |
+2 letters: buggery. | |
+3 letters: gunnybag. | |
+4 letters: gunnybags. | |
+5 letters: bunglingly, humbuggery. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
