A Design Flaw is not a Bug

I realized the other night that no one else cares whether a problem is a bug or not.

Let me be clear, I'd seen evidence of this, and understood intellectually that they didn't get why it matters. The other night, I realized that it never will matter to them.

I'm a professional programmer. I deal in algorithms and data. I classify everything. Classifications are important in my world. The classification of a problem is important to me on a gut level, as well as having an important function in this case.

So, to all you non-programmers, listen closely. Programmers, remember this idea.

A bug is when the system does not work as it is intended. If there is a bug, we need to fix the code, so the program works as it is designed to. When the design is bad, it is not a bug. It is a design flaw. If we treat design flaws like bugs, you end up with a program that does the wrong thing perfectly. When the problem is not a bug, we have to re-design the program (or a portion thereof) or you don't get what you want.

Design flaws and bugs are fundamentally different, and we should treat them as such.