When a coder makes an error, we would probably call it a "coding error".
But is there a standard term for an error in understanding what code does?
Would that be a "code-reading error"? That doesn't seem like a very standard
term.
How about someone who accuses someone of making an error when the
other person's code is fine? What's the word (or phrase) for that in software
development?

Thank You.

Paul Epstein

On 02/09/23 08:30, Paul Epstein wrote:

> When a coder makes an error, we would probably call it a "coding
> error". But is there a standard term for an error in understanding
> what code does? Would that be a "code-reading error"? That doesn't
> seem like a very standard term.

I don't know the answer, but you've reminded me of something that
happened a lot when I was teaching programming. A student would come to
me and say "My program doesn't work. Can you tell me what is wrong?".
I'd read his code, and when I got to a confusing tangle I'd ask "What
were you trying to do at this stage?". Almost always, he/she didn't
know. Those lost students didn't understand their own code.

Eventually, I got around such problems by refusing to look at the code
until the comments had been inserted.

> How about someone who accuses someone of making an error when the
> other person's code is fine? What's the word (or phrase) for that in
> software development?

That's something I've never met. Perhaps I've only had polite colleagues.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Friday or thereabouts, Peter Moylan asked ...
> On 02/09/23 08:30, Paul Epstein wrote:
>
>> When a coder makes an error, we would probably call it a "coding
>> error". But is there a standard term for an error in understanding
>> what code does? Would that be a "code-reading error"? That doesn't
>> seem like a very standard term.
>
> I don't know the answer, but you've reminded me of something that
> happened a lot when I was teaching programming. A student would come to
> me and say "My program doesn't work. Can you tell me what is wrong?".
> I'd read his code, and when I got to a confusing tangle I'd ask "What
> were you trying to do at this stage?". Almost always, he/she didn't
> know. Those lost students didn't understand their own code.
>
> Eventually, I got around such problems by refusing to look at the code
> until the comments had been inserted.
>
>> How about someone who accuses someone of making an error when the
>> other person's code is fine? What's the word (or phrase) for that in
>> software development?
>
> That's something I've never met. Perhaps I've only had polite colleagues.

Maybe "systematic error" (sorry about the puffy cheeks).

Not a new problem, of course ... here's a word to the wise from 1975:

<URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hdJQkn8rtA>

/dps

--
We’ve learned way more than we wanted to know about the early history
of American professional basketball, like that you could have once
watched a game between teams named the Indianapolis Kautskys and the
Akron Firestone Non-Skids. -- fivethirtyeight.com

Paul Epstein <pepstein5@gmail.com> writes:
>But is there a standard term for an error in understanding what code does?

"Misinterpretation"? "parsing error"? "reading comprehension error"?
"decoding error"? "misreading"?

>How about someone who accuses someone of making an error when the
>other person's code is fine? What's the word (or phrase) for that in software
>development?

I already mentioned here: "spurious error message".