Lately, I've been trying to get caught up and remain caught up with daily content: empty email inbox, no unread Slack messages, and now, all RSS feeds read. It's the last of these that led me to a fascinating discovery.

Ninety-nine little bugs in the code, Ninety-nine little bugs! You take one down, patch it around, A hundred and seventeen bugs in the code!

(See also Twelve Benefits of Writing Unit Tests First.)

Software developers have a wonderful explanation for why there are so, so many software bugs. Unfortunately, it’s a highly technical explanation that’s very difficult for the layman to understand. I’ll try to summarize, but be aware that the following is a gross oversimplification.

The root problem is that software is complex. And it’s not just that software has complexity. It has a lot of complexity. And there are different kinds of complexity. For example, there’s necessary complexity and unnecessary complexity, architectural complexity, design complexity, protocol complexity, and API complexity. And then you have process complexity, such as whether you are able to deliver working software or whether you blame your manager and call him a dork.

Needless to say, software developers like to blame bugs on the complexity of software–or on their managers–but mostly on the complexity of software. However, that’s only part of the real cause of software bugs. Software developers have a dirty little secret: most bugs are simply caused by simple human error, and many of these can be prevented.