Lesson 7 of 81947–today7 min
Errors and debugging
On 9 September 1947 the operators of the Harvard Mark II, an electromechanical computer, found a moth trapped in one of its relays. They taped it into the logbook with the note "First actual case of bug being found". The page is now in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
The joke worked because engineers already called faults "bugs"; the moth was simply a literal one. Most bugs since have been less visible, and finding them is a skill you can learn rather than a matter of luck.
The rest of this lesson is part of Pro
Create a free account to read the first lesson of every path, and go Pro for the rest.
Sources
- Log Book With Computer Bug — Smithsonian National Museum of American History
- Errors and Exceptions — Python documentation
- pdb: The Python Debugger — Python documentation