Is anyone else alarmed at seeing the word “glitch” creeping into the popular press? Wire service reports, as quoted verbatim in online journals like StickyMinds.com, always refer to a “glitch” as the cause of computer system malfunctions.
A “glitch” was responsible for the parents of hundreds of college-bound high school seniors being advised that their children would not graduate. For private personal data being stolen from credit accounts. For a spacecraft not being able to maneuver.
Those pesky little glitches! We just can’t seem to keep them from sneaking into our computers no matter how well we build them. It sounds like Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny around the farm. Something as cute and entertaining as a glitch need not be taken seriously.
This seems like a subtle campaign to convince humanity that we’ll just have to learn to put up with computer errors, no matter how much inconvenience and outright damage they cause, because there’s nothing that can be done about them.
Isn’t it time we started calling them “defects”? A defect sounds like something that was created by humans using faulty processes or trying to save a buck at our expense–because regardless of what we call it, software development is still a medieval-style craft that has not earned the right to be called “engineering.”
A defect is not a furry little critter that sneaks into our homes and offices to engage in wacky hijinks.