I have forgotten a slang programming term. This thing is an intentional bug or a decoy feature used as a distraction. An example usage, “Hey Bob, QA is doing a review today. Put a $THING into the module so they actually have a problem to find”.
This can be used negatively, to have a very obvious intentional flaw to discover as a distraction from a real problem.
This can also be used positively. Its like how you always let rescue dogs ‘find’ a victim when searching a disaster area. It can also be used to verify that a QA process is actually catching flaws.
What is the term I am looking for?
4
A Duck
From https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/#5:
A feature added for no other reason than to draw management attention and be removed, thus avoiding unnecessary changes in other aspects of the product.
0
Actually in manufacturing (and quality assurance) there is something called a Red Rabbit Test (aka Red Herring) that refers to putting a known bad part into the machine or process and making sure it’s detected.
Red Rabbit Test
used to check how long it takes to identify a defect. In this test, a red part is added to the mix and the time until it is discovered is identified.
Some automated machines have automatic cycles (typically once per shift) where it prompts the operator to load the “red rabbit” part and then it runs the cycle checking that the error detection and rejection logic work correctly.
1
Seems like my professors called it bebugging or fault seeding. The idea is that if you wanted to estimate the population of something like fish in a lake, you could catch some, tag and release them, give them time to assimilate randomly with the other fish, then estimate the population based on how many tagged fish you catch later.
This search link finds a page in a book by the late great Watts Humphrey where he talks about this technique.
0