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Recently, I’ve watched some videos about C# async bugs and got into discussions with friends.
Is it correct to say that a programming language has a bug ?
or can you only say that a compiler has a bug ?
what is the difference between both ?
The language has a design flaw if it’s not designed well for whatever reason (e.g. the ability to call static methods via an expression of the declaring type in Java, IMO).
The language has a bug (IMO) if the specification is contradictory or doesn’t express what the author intended it to express. (I believe there are some bugs in the C# language specification around type inference, for example.)
The compiler has a bug if it fails to implement the specification correctly.
EDIT: I’ve found an example of a spec bug which is rather simpler than type inference ones…
In the C# 4 spec, section 7.3.1 states: “Except for the assignment operators, all binary operators are left-associative”.
Section 7.13 states: “The null coalescing operator is right-associative”
As the null coalescing operator is a non-assignment binary operator, this is a contradiction and thus (IMO) a bug. (It was also noted in this Stack Overflow question.)
The null coalescing operator also provides an example of a compiler bug which I discovered while answering that question…