The story is a fantastic one. A bug. An actual bug causing a computer to misbehave.
The fact that this was found by Grace Hopper — who is an absolute legend in the world of computer programming — adds to the legendary status of this story. And this story has been repeated countless times as the origin for why we use the term “bug” when talking about errors and defects in computer software.
There’s just two problems with this story:
- This was not the origin of term “bug” being used for engineering — including computer software.
- And it was not likely discovered — or recorded — by Grace Hopper.
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