Many have heard my theory about the "One True Bug" that there is one undying bug that every other bug is controlled by. A bug you could work on your entire career. Some of you have encountered (or been assigned to conquer) the One True Bug. Jonathan was in possession of it for a time on TSO, when it was known as "user gets disconnected more then they think they ought to". (I'm paraphrasing from the original Elvish.) I came across a site where someone had the entire script for the LOTR movies, so I paraphrased it into the legend of the One Bug:
Much that once worked is lost. For none now
work here who remember it.
It began with the forging of the great code.
Three bugs were given to the Producers, immortal, wisest and fairest of all
beings.
Seven to the Test lords, great miners and craftsmen of the way things can break.
And nine, nine bugs were gifted to the race of Programmers, who above all else,
desire power.
For within these bugs was bound the strength and will to make the code break.
But they were all of them deceived, for another bug was made. In their own
homes, on their own computers,
the Beta Testers found in secret a master Bug, to control all others. And into
this Bug, they poured their
irreproducibility and their lack of ability to describe what they were doing
when it happened.
One Bug to rule them all.
One by one, the sections of code that worked fell to the power of the Bug. But
there were some who resisted.
A last alliance of Producers and Managers marched against the armies of Beta
Testers, and in the
hallways and cubicles they fought for the freedom to ship product.
Victory was near. But the power of the Bug could not be undone...