Re: bugs (was RE: [MUD-Dev] players who "take away from the game")

["Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com>]

Michael Sellers wrote:
> Holly Sommer wrote:
> > On Thu, 11 Nov 1999, Ola Fosheim =?iso-8859-1?Q?Gr=F8stad?= wrote:
> > > Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > > > On Thu, 11 Nov 1999, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> > > > > Note 3: Some designers are inclined to call design flaws "bugs".
> > > >
> > > > They are.  So are errors in the terrain (for example, a description of
> > > > a door which claims to have a large lock on it, but trying to lock or
> > > > unlock the door reports that the door has no lock), or anything else
> > > > which breaks the consistency and enjoyment of your game world.
> > >
> > > A bug is usually considered (for historical reasons) to be a defect in the
> > > implementation, not the design.  It's when you didn't write what you
> > > intended to write. Or in the historical context, when a  wire has been
> > > accidentally removed (by a bug :9.
> > >
> > > That's how I use the term anyway.
> >
> > At work here, I've heard more than one engineer refer to bugs as
> > "features without the tuxedos."
>
> Yep -- there's an old programmer's cartoon about this.  Bugs can be design
> flaws, logic flaws, or simple errors in programming.  Splitting hairs
> between design flaws and implementation flaws is a programmer's way of
> looking at the world: the user sure doesn't care if you meant to do that or
> not.  If it doesn't work the way it *should*, it's a bug.
>
> And, to return to the previous discussion, if a bug is known and someone
> repeatedly uses it to their own advantage, well, they deserve whatever they
> get in the end.

I've noticed that end-users do not often use the term "bug".  Usually it's
more along the lines of "Help", "Something is not working right", or "I'm
having a problem" or "What's going on?".   Once you've solved a
problem for a user and told them it was a "bug", further reports
from the user are more likely to contain the term "bug".
Some users are more knowledgeable than others and are able to
provide some helpful analysis.  I'd suggest the majority of the mud
players are not likely to provide very helpful problem analysis without
a lot of interrogation, unless they be longtime players or subscribe to
MudDev.  ;)   I'd guess that using a single command verb like "problem"
is sufficient enough for the user to use to describe any perceived
system anomaly.

--
--*     Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD Email: jlsysinc#nospam,ix.netcom.com     *--
--*     Mud Server Developer's Page <http://jlsysinc.home.netcom.com>      *--
--* "No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson *--





_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev#kanga,nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev