#fvwm #trivia!

for #fvwm1 (and for a time, #fvwm2), the man page used to have a BUGS section which listed the following:

As of fvwm 0.99 there were exactly 39.342 unidentified bugs. Identified bugs have mostly been fixed, though. Since then 9.34 bugs have been fixed.

Assuming that there are at least 10 unidentified bugs for every identified one, that leaves us with 39.342 - 9.32 + 10 * 9.34 = 123.402 unidentified bugs. If we follow this to its logical conclusion we will have an infinite number of unidentified bugs before the number of bugs can start to diminish, at which point the program will be bug-free.

Since this is a computer program infinity = 3.4028e+38 if you don't insist on double-precision. At the current rate of bug discovery we should expect to achieve this point in 3.37e+27 years

I guess I better plan on passing this thing on to my children....

The "I" here refers to Robert Nation, the original creator of #fvwm and #rxvt.

As it happens, I've not been able to reduce the number of bugs in #fvwm3 either, and I've no grandchildren...