"Make it a feature, not a bug!"

We were doing a job, bringing things to and fro on the car trailer, my eldest son, Stein, and I. Then for some good reason he quoted his youngest brother, Joern: "Make it a feature, not a bug!"

Chapter 2   Chapter 3

Chapter 1:

I was struck by the saying, and at once decided to make it a topic in my teaching on communication. However, I also wondered if this is a proverb, well known to the cyber tribe? I passed a mail on it, asking:

Ian Reeve contributed:

The saying seems similar in meaning to the much older one of "to make a virtue of necessity".  It means making something good out of something that you are forced to deal with and which could potentially be a problem.

The classic example in Australian motoring history was the new model Ford that came out a few years back.  The new engine was burning exhaust valves under testing and no one could figure out why it was happening.  Because they were locked into a production schedule, they fitted temperature sensors to the individual cylinders of the engine and these were linked to the computerised engine management system such that the power would be reduced on individual cylinders if they got too hot and thus ran the risk of burning valves.  This was marketed as an
advance in sophistication of engine management systems, when it was actually a quick fix of a fundamental flaw in the engine design that no-one could sort out before it went into production.

Truly a case of making a feature out of a bug, or a virtue of necessity.

Ian

Thank you; Ian! Anyone else who wants to drop a bone in the soup kettle? You are welcome! - Enok

Chapter 2:

I told Joern that I had presented the saying on Hugen, and he tried to remember more of the story: The saying went probably "It is a feature, not a bug!" And the background could be something like this: A new PC was presented (a laptop?) and the great thing was "floating/fluid crystals". Then someone discovered that to read the screen you had to be exactly in front of it for the line of view to hit it in an angle of approximately 90 degrees. If you were sitting/standing out of this angle, along the mirror, you would see nothing. Oh, mine! somebody said. Should it be possible to read the screen only like through a peephole!!! They called the producer who plaited his hair and rubbed his scull, then e announced: "It is a feature, not a bug!" You see when writing on this device, it is only the user who is beeing accessed to the board. Anyone else standing there to spy or to read along the side, will see nothing. Your writing is shielded, your PC is offering a personal protection. Yes, I tell you: "It is a feature, not a bug!" - Enok

PS I made a combined Google search on "feature bug", and quite right: Lots of producer and manual URLs showed up, informing and discussing the "feature-bug" feature. DS

Chapter 3:

Ian came back:

And I could not resist a google search on virtue of necessity.  It 
appears that it was first used by Geoffery Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales (The Knightes Tale) at line 3044:

And here agains no creature on live,
Of no degree, availeth for to strive.
Than is it wisdom, as it thinketh me,
To maken vertu of necessitee,
And take it well that we may not eschue -
And namelich that to us all is due.

Chaucer borrowed from the Old French "faire de necessité vertue".

The idea goes back even further to the Latin of Quintillian (35-95AD) and his Institutiones Oratoriæ. i. 8, 14:

Laudem virtutis necessitati damus (We give to necessity the praise of virtue).

So people have been making bugs into features for at least 2000 years!

Ian