←back to thread

At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

(www.nytimes.com)
631 points xbryanx | 3 comments | 11 Jul 25 11:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.836s | source
Show context
RedShift1 ◴[11 Jul 25 12:51 UTC] No.44531557[source]▶
What was the actual bug in the software that caused the accounting errors?
replies(2): >>44532667 #>>44538604 #
1. renewiltord ◴[11 Jul 25 14:40 UTC] No.44532667[source]▶
From the wording of the description of the programmer who failed to debug and labeled it user error it appears that it is fairly typical Accenture-grade software where there is no single bug so much as the program itself approximates the correct result.

Their data model appears to have been akin to having a single accumulator sum up things rather than to use something like double-entry bookkeeping or an account graph so that the source of errors could be traced.

It’s less “a bug” and more a coincidence that the application worked when it did.

replies(1): >>44535349 #
2. RedShift1 ◴[11 Jul 25 18:14 UTC] No.44535349[source]▶
So the errors could be down to using floats instead of decimal types?
replies(1): >>44535964 #
3. renewiltord ◴[11 Jul 25 19:22 UTC] No.44535964[source]▶
It could be that. It could be that they just have separate code paths for measuring "amount in" and "amount reported" with an if-clause missing in one and present in the other. From the description the debugging programmer provides, it doesn't look like they had any sort of coherent design.