Debugging is, as the name implies, the removal of so-called bugs from a computer. A computer bug is not a living creature--rather it is a defect in software or hardware that causes a program to malfunction.

While today's computer bugs are inanimate, the original computer bug was indeed a living creature. In 1945, a moth became trapped between two electrical relays of Harvard University's Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator, shutting the machine down. The bug was discovered and preserved for posterity by Grace Hopper. In her notes of the incident, she coined the term computer bug.

Debugging is an important aspect of computer operation. Prior to the year 2000, countries around the world spent billions of dollars to upgrade operating software in an attempt to circumvent anticipated calendar related computer malfunctions upon the change of the year to '00.' Because many operating systems denoted the year only by the...