Article
That's not a bug, it's a feature!
Bugs, bugs, bugs. What is a bug? Yes, there’s the creepy-crawly variety but there’s not much we can do about those!
As far as Computer Games (and Software in general) are concerned, a bug is simply a defect or glitch in how the program that is supposed to work. Bugs exist in many different forms – some are simple and easy to spot. Others are not so simple, so where does the name come from?
Way, way back in the very early days of computing, computers used to be made from mechanical contacts (switches) that opened and closed as they did their job. These computers were huge and would often fill large rooms with nothing more than vast arrays of switching contacts.
One day, Filip the fly came along and decided that he was tired so he sat down on a nice looking spot. SPLAT! The contact he was sitting on closed and, well, that was the end of Filip. Fear not, for Filip would reach out from beyond the grave! His remains were dense enough to sometimes stop the contacts from working properly.
Every so often, the contacts would close but the signal wouldn’t get through and the program would make a different decision. This was not good so what could we do? The answer lies in sending in a technician with a bug scraper! Yes, it’s true – some poor bloke would have to go looking for the bug on the dodgy contact and scrape it clean before the computer would work properly again. Needless to say, Filip and his millions of brothers and sisters weren’t particularly popular…
And so, the term ‘bug’ was born which persists to this day albeit in a somewhat modified form. Today, bugs are instances where the program code simply doesn’t quite do what it needs to.
What’s all of this got to do with Football Superstars? Well, it’s scraping time! We’re all hard at work finding and fixing all the bugs we can. Some are easy, some are downright hard but just every once in a while you find something quite remarkable. Something that isn’t quite right but it’s not quite wrong either! The code is doing something that wasn’t planned for but it might actually be cool.
At that point, it’s not a bug it’s a feature. :-)
