About This Site

Feel free to add bookmarks/links to this site. You don’t need my approval at all.

When you make a link to this site, I’d recommend that you do that with http://enbug.org/ rather than any other part of this site, because I cannot ensure that other parts will be persistent.

This site is managed by Yoshinori K. Okuji. Please send e-mail about this site to okuji at enbug dot org

What is enbug?

The word enbug was probably made in Japan, because I haven’t heard it in any other country. It is, however, very popular in Japan.

The meaning of enbug is the opposite of the word debug, namely, to add errors or defects into software or hardware. We use enbug, in particular when we’d like to get rid of bugs actually. Very often, you could think you find what is wrong in your software or hardware, but it isn’t really. So what you would do is just raising new bugs rather than fixing existing problems.

That is unfortunate but still necessary in software/hardware development. Oh, you may now want to ask, “Then, how can I debug things rather than enbugging them more efficiently?” I don’t know…

What is enbug.org?

This site is managed by Yoshinori K. Okuji, to promote enbugging Free Software. See The Free Software Definition, for more information about Free Software.

Why Free Software?

There are several reasons:

• It is difficult to enbug hardware instead of software for most people, including me. Because it costs too much to make hardware by your own. This might change, if I get a cheap logic board which can be manipulated only by software.
• To enbug software, you normally need the source code. I must admit that you can also enbug binary-only software, but this wouldn’t be a joy, as you cannot obtain enough information about the internal of your software. Therefore, source code is very important to enbug.
• Your software must be debugged as well as enbugged. Otherwise, your software will be merely a house of bugs, that is, your software cannot work at all. Then, at last, what you do won’t be enbugging but just substituting new bugs with old ones. Therefore, you need to fix bugs. For that purpose, Free Software is more efficient, as you can fix others’ software and others can fix your software.
• Don’t you want to show what you enbugged to other people?

Why is ”enbug” so important?

To create good software, you must experience trial and error. That includes not only debugging but also enbugging. If all you did is debug, you are quite lucky, but the real world rarely permits such a good fortune. So you shouldn’t be afraid to enbug software. Of course, I don’t recommend that you enbug software on purpose, though.