June 1, 2000

Just read your piece 'Computer Bugs and other Bugaboos' and thought I would add my own two cents worth, for whatever it's worth:

As Richard Homme says, the Y2K problem was neither a bug nor a virus. However it wasn't, as he claims, created by a lack of foresight. The computer programmers who coded it knew (mostly) that their programs wouldn't work past 1999.

The Y2K problem was a calculated design limitation of many programs. All programs have design limitations. The programs which purport to have fixed the Y2K problem also have limitations. Most will fail in the year 9999.

A limitation may be due to the logic of the program, in which case it too is a design limitation, or it may be due to a limitation of the underlying software or hardware, invisible to the programmer — in which case he may be naively unaware of it, and it can be said to be a bug (a failure of the program to meet its design).

Doug Forkes

May 24, 2000

First let me thank you for Words, Woe & Wonder. In this age, it's no longer popular to take an interest in or discuss language; and with the advent of instantaneous global communication, it is more necessary now than ever to try to stem the flood of poor English that makes it ever more difficult to find sense in all that communication.

I'm writing only to pedantically point out an error in your article on viruses, worms, bugs, and trojans. You suggest that some dictionaries may define the Trojan Horse in terms of Homer's Iliad, when in fact it's a common mistake to link them. The Iliad ends with the defeat of Hector, Troy's greatest prince and warrior.

The subsequent events: the death of Achilles, the arrival of his son Neoptolemus, and the fall and sack of Troy by means of the Trojan Horse are all told in other sources. The popular tale of Achilles being dipped in the River Styx by his mother Thetis, thus he is said to have become invulnerable to weapons save where she held him by his ankle, is also not Homeric. In fact, Achilles wasn't killed by a blow to the back of the foot but by Paris's arrow in his back while he prayed.

Fergus Gibson

Editor's Note: We were ill advised to refer to the Iliad. The mistake has been fixed. Thank you for the correction, as well as the kind words about Words, Woe & Wonder.

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