software rot

The tendency for computer software to become gradually worse in performance or responsiveness over time, eventually leading to it becoming completely faulty, unresponsive, or unusable. This is either due to software failing to remain up to date and compatible with the operating system in which it operates, or because the software's code has been updated or altered in ways that have introduced more bugs and errors over time. (It doesn't refer to actual physical decay.) If you want to develop programs that people continue to use for years to come, you've got to factor in ways to avoid software rot with each new update, the users will eventually move on to something that works better. A lot of people just let programs sit on their hard drives for years at a time without being updated or upgraded at all, and then are totally flabbergasted when software rot renders them totally unusable down the line.See also: rot, software

software rot

n. an imaginary disease that causes computer programs to go bad over a long period of time. (Computers.) What you have here is not a bug, but just plain old software rot. See also: rot, software

software rot

(programming)The tendency of software that has not been usedin a while to fail; such failure may be semi-humorouslyascribed to bit rot. More commonly, "software rot" strikeswhen a program's assumptions become out of date. If thedesign was insufficiently robust, this may cause it to failin mysterious ways.

For example, owing to shortsightedness in the design of someCOBOL programs, many would have succumbed to software rot whentheir 2-digit year counters wrapped around at the beginning ofthe year 2000. A related incident made the news in 1990, whena gentleman born in 1889 applied for a driver's licencerenewal in Raleigh, North Carolina. The system refused toissue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the ages101 and 1 cannot be distinguished.

Historical note: Software rot in an even funnier sense thanthe mythical one was a real problem on early researchcomputers (e.g. the R1; see grind crank). If a programthat depended on a peculiar instruction hadn't been run inquite a while, the user might discover that the opcodes nolonger did the same things they once did. ("Hey, so-and-soneeds an instruction to do such-and-such. We can snarf thisopcode, right? No one uses it.")

Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIThacker found a simple way to double the speed of theunconditional jump instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched thehardware. Unfortunately, this broke some fragile timingsoftware in a music-playing program, throwing its output outof tune. This was fixed by adding a defensive initialisationroutine to compare the speed of a timing loop with thereal-time clock; in other words, it figured out how fast thePDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately.

software rot

The gradual decline in performance of an application in the computer. Software rot may manifest as slow execution or erratic behavior. Also called "software erosion," "bit rot" and "code rot," it generally occurs for two reasons. The first is bad software design in which the program's own configuration files can become corrupted after extended use. Deleting such files or re-installing the app may solve the problem. The second reason is incompatibility with the environment. Occasionally, a new version of the operating system can cause existing applications to fail or degrade, in which case upgrading the app, if possible, is typically the only solution.

单词	software rot
释义	DictionarySeerot software rot software rot The tendency for computer software to become gradually worse in performance or responsiveness over time, eventually leading to it becoming completely faulty, unresponsive, or unusable. This is either due to software failing to remain up to date and compatible with the operating system in which it operates, or because the software's code has been updated or altered in ways that have introduced more bugs and errors over time. (It doesn't refer to actual physical decay.) If you want to develop programs that people continue to use for years to come, you've got to factor in ways to avoid software rot with each new update, the users will eventually move on to something that works better. A lot of people just let programs sit on their hard drives for years at a time without being updated or upgraded at all, and then are totally flabbergasted when software rot renders them totally unusable down the line.See also: rot, software software rot n. an imaginary disease that causes computer programs to go bad over a long period of time. (Computers.) What you have here is not a bug, but just plain old software rot. See also: rot, software software rot software rot (programming)The tendency of software that has not been usedin a while to fail; such failure may be semi-humorouslyascribed to bit rot. More commonly, "software rot" strikeswhen a program's assumptions become out of date. If thedesign was insufficiently robust, this may cause it to failin mysterious ways. For example, owing to shortsightedness in the design of someCOBOL programs, many would have succumbed to software rot whentheir 2-digit year counters wrapped around at the beginning ofthe year 2000. A related incident made the news in 1990, whena gentleman born in 1889 applied for a driver's licencerenewal in Raleigh, North Carolina. The system refused toissue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the ages101 and 1 cannot be distinguished. Historical note: Software rot in an even funnier sense thanthe mythical one was a real problem on early researchcomputers (e.g. the R1; see grind crank). If a programthat depended on a peculiar instruction hadn't been run inquite a while, the user might discover that the opcodes nolonger did the same things they once did. ("Hey, so-and-soneeds an instruction to do such-and-such. We can snarf thisopcode, right? No one uses it.") Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIThacker found a simple way to double the speed of theunconditional jump instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched thehardware. Unfortunately, this broke some fragile timingsoftware in a music-playing program, throwing its output outof tune. This was fixed by adding a defensive initialisationroutine to compare the speed of a timing loop with thereal-time clock; in other words, it figured out how fast thePDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately. software rot The gradual decline in performance of an application in the computer. Software rot may manifest as slow execution or erratic behavior. Also called "software erosion," "bit rot" and "code rot," it generally occurs for two reasons. The first is bad software design in which the program's own configuration files can become corrupted after extended use. Deleting such files or re-installing the app may solve the problem. The second reason is incompatibility with the environment. Occasionally, a new version of the operating system can cause existing applications to fail or degrade, in which case upgrading the app, if possible, is typically the only solution.
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