Boffins zapped '2,000 bugs' from Curiosity's 2 MILLION lines of code.

Explanation: ...

Billion-dollar laser-firing nuke tank - what could go wrong? (by By Anna Leach • Posted in Enterprise Security, 22nd August 2012 11:00 GMT) [theregister.co.uk]

With a $2.5bn price tag, a 350-million mile journey and 2 million lines of C and some C++ code, the only bugs NASA wants its Curiosity rover to find are those possibly beneath the Martian surface.

And it may not be a particularly glamorous job, but software analysis outfit Coverity was the company tasked with "ensuring that every software defect is found and fixed before launch".

Roughly 2,000 bugs were zapped in the rover's code, estimates Andy Chou, the chief technical officer of Coverity, although NASA is schtum on the exact figures.

Please refer to linked article for the full story ok!

Personal Disclosure: at NASA fulfilling its Never A Straight Answer psuedonym ...

although NASA is schtum on the exact figures.

This is highly suspicious. [No it isn't!]

It is almost too Alien in nature to not trust NASA. [YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING ME!]

This has gotten my Curiosity up! [Bites on a Mars bar!]

So NASA ... what is the go with the perfectly coded killbot on mars,... is this a land grab by force? [Sips on Koolaid! :w: ]

Is this thread and the articles title a metaphor for what is to come?

Would you like to know more?



What do my fellow ATS members make of this?

It would be a worry if they had 2 million lines of c code without any 'bugs'. Something that big will be littered with bugs, it is pretty much perfectly normal. I do hope they caught all the bugs, but to be honest a piece of software is very rarely ever perfect. Something will come up eventually in the code, but I'd wager they would be able to fix it from here relatively easily.
To code is to err.

Whats the point of this thread I don´t get it.
2000 bugs are really not much for 2 000 000 lines of code mostly untested outside the simulation.

Btw, your thread finally made me block emoticons on this site and whats that "explanation: emoticon" supposed to do in every post you make? Just curious about that

I am alerting for your painful puns.

I suppose the conspirators will say that this is a CYA (cover yer arse) maneuver announced early on to explain something that will happen later on. I guess my mind goes there first as well. Whether it is true or not... I am sure we will never know.

Interesting none the less!

The odds that some problems will emerge over time are against NASA naturally. I don´t think they would need to practice CYA (what a funny term xD)

given a bug fix could be a fixing of a spelling mistake it would be fun if half of them was just corrections of words like colour into the americanized color etc and the rest are probably in error handling routines which shouldn't be used very often

but with 2 million lines it would of been virtually impossible to write error free code

I think they would have sorted out the console and GUI output strings for sure. Everything in "" is supposed to be a string so they would have written a function to skip these. But a funny thought xD

2000 is that all they need some award for that. really bugs will come bugs will go but they will never be comletely gone. To error is human no matter how good you are. I remember the Dilbert comic where there is a $10 reward for every bug found and Wally was going to program himself a new mini van after lunch

reply to post by OmegaLogos


Okay OP...

So you are saying a consulting firm that specializes in software analysis was hired to do a "fresh pair of eyes" analysis of the Curiosity's software....

...AND they did the job they were hired to do because they found errors in the code/inefficient code (there will always be errors in the code/inefficient code).

...And???

Explanation: There was hardly anything conspiratorial about it at face value ... but being a member of ATS I have learned to totally distort reality to suit my agenda whilst remaining straight faced about that!

So I had a little think about those nasty TPTB folk and how they have this weird code where they have to telegraph the fine print of the contract with the devil, which is some stupid ego challange between the rich elite, to see which of those devils can pull the wool over our eyes, ... and who are terribly horribly bored and can afford to play with our lives as long as it meets some lofty but false sense of 'fair go' game play.

And then it dawned upon me ... and I yawned and really wanted to go back to sleep but then the rays of truth struck me in the eye that not only did the boffins zap the bugs in the code before it was launched ... but once landed on mars, Curiosity was zapping rocks with its laser whilst 'looking for signs of life'.

It was only a short step from there to Intergalactic War [Mars is the God of War] with Alien 'Bugs'!

Would you like to know more?



Personal Disclosure: Ahhhh so lovey dovey with the "Ima firing my lazors" bit!

Would you like to know more?

Explanation: Oh come on! We are so far down the rabbit hole here ... it's OBVIOUS!



Personal Disclosure: That I am ... Mad as a Mars Hare!

But trust me on the bug hunts ok!

Would you like to know more?





Continued same ATS thread, next ATS post!...

How deep is YOUR fnord?