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JokeRe: What is a bug? Pin
Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter5-May-16 9:43
professionalKornfeld Eliyahu Peter5-May-16 9:43 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Slacker0075-May-16 9:48
professionalSlacker0075-May-16 9:48 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
dandy725-May-16 10:19
dandy725-May-16 10:19 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Mike Hankey5-May-16 10:20
mveMike Hankey5-May-16 10:20 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Ravi Bhavnani5-May-16 10:43
professionalRavi Bhavnani5-May-16 10:43 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
rob tillaart5-May-16 21:56
rob tillaart5-May-16 21:56 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
loctrice6-May-16 2:39
professionalloctrice6-May-16 2:39 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Sander Rossel6-May-16 3:20
professionalSander Rossel6-May-16 3:20 
The more interesting question is "what do I tell my customers?"

For example, the customer tells you "we want the name of the customer on our invoices." and you build exactly that. Now your customer calls and tells you the software doesn't work as expected. He created an invoice and it's addressed to "Higher Order Programming", but he had expected it to say "Marc Clifton"! "Well," you say "seems like we have ourselves a bug."
However, classifying this as a bug makes it sound like it's YOUR fault (after all, bugs are made by programmers) while actually the specs were ambiguous (he had to specify the name of the person, not the company, a bug in the specs if you will).
Calling the specs ambiguous may insult your customer.
What is the correct thing to say, you don't want to take blame and you don't want to blame someone else?
Perhaps "it seems there has been a misunderstanding, I can change it right away."

Now what if you had made the application to print not any name on the invoice, but the price (where the name is supposed to be). Clearly that's not in the specs and it seems you actually have a bug. Can you tell the customer "we have a bug"? The word "bug" brings with it a negative annotation. Would it be better to tell the customer "it seems I've overlooked something" avoiding the words "bug", "error", "mistake", etc.

I try to avoid the word as much as I can. "You're right, I'll change it right away!" seems like a good thing to say. Hearing you're right is always nice. Hearing that your problem will be fixed right away is also nice. The customer just forgot about the bug altogether and even though your software is buggy the customer is actually satisfied with your services!

Answering your initial question, I don't think a syntax error is a bug, it's simply something you've overlooked Smile | :)
Read my (free) ebook Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly.
Visit my blog at Sander's bits - Writing the code you need.
Or read my articles here on CodeProject.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra
Regards,
Sander

GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Marc Clifton6-May-16 4:57
mvaMarc Clifton6-May-16 4:57 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
Peter R. Fletcher6-May-16 4:18
Peter R. Fletcher6-May-16 4:18 
GeneralRe: What is a bug? Pin
maze38-May-16 23:22
professionalmaze38-May-16 23:22 
GeneralHappy World Password Day! Pin
JoeSox5-May-16 5:48
JoeSox5-May-16 5:48 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! PinPopular
F-ES Sitecore5-May-16 6:01
professionalF-ES Sitecore5-May-16 6:01 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
Mark_Wallace5-May-16 6:41
Mark_Wallace5-May-16 6:41 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
PompeyThree5-May-16 7:16
PompeyThree5-May-16 7:16 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
JoeSox5-May-16 7:21
JoeSox5-May-16 7:21 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
GuyThiebaut5-May-16 7:23
professionalGuyThiebaut5-May-16 7:23 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
Sander Rossel6-May-16 3:23
professionalSander Rossel6-May-16 3:23 
GeneralRe: Happy World Password Day! Pin
kmoorevs6-May-16 3:42
kmoorevs6-May-16 3:42 
GeneralCisco Spark vs. Slack Pin
Nick Schwertfeger5-May-16 5:52
professionalNick Schwertfeger5-May-16 5:52 
GeneralRe: Cisco Spark vs. Slack Pin
W Balboos, GHB6-May-16 0:55
W Balboos, GHB6-May-16 0:55 
GeneralRe: Cisco Spark vs. Slack Pin
Nick Schwertfeger6-May-16 2:11
professionalNick Schwertfeger6-May-16 2:11 
GeneralMicrosoft's Broken Links Pin
Rob Grainger5-May-16 5:28
Rob Grainger5-May-16 5:28 
GeneralRe: Microsoft's Broken Links Pin
90823655-May-16 5:40
90823655-May-16 5:40 
GeneralRe: Microsoft's Broken Links Pin
Mark_Wallace5-May-16 6:44
Mark_Wallace5-May-16 6:44 

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