How can I describe a bug as a feature?

Question

I often hear of situations where a bug in a program is passed off as a feature. This seems like a useful skill to have.

Please describe a technique for doing this - preferably with specific examples.

Answer 1

It is not a good idea to accept bugs as features as it corresponds to unordered development.

• Accept all accidental features as bugs and re-implement such features.
• Accidental features can be avoided by writing tests first. Have a look at Test Driven Development.

Answer 2

I don't know. I once used the argument that if my program throws a particular exception (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException in my case) is because the user circumvented the javascript length validation on the JSP form.

Of course I fixed this issue later by returning a more gently "Please do not mess with the form." kinda answer instead of just the 500 Server Error page.

But please, use static analysis tools and unit testing to prevent such kind of silly bugs slip into the production.