A senior monk who was jealous of the nun Zjing’s recent
promotion decided to spy on her work. Opening a recent
project, he was astonished to find her code a confusing
mess, riddled with obvious bugs. He notified master Banzen.
The old master thanked the monk for his diligence and bade
him remain a moment. Banzen then called young master Zjing
and put her on speaker.
“Say something about this ‘mouse’ project you created,”
ordered Banzen.
“It is of exceedingly poor design,” said Zjing.
The senior monk smiled with satisfaction.
Banzen asked, “How poor?”
“This morning, our Software Quality Assessment tools found
three hundred and eight separate deficiencies,” replied
Zjing.
“That is a problem,” said Banzen. “If memory serves, they
should have found three hundred and twenty.”
“Correct,” said Zjing. “Someone appears to have deactivated
the rules which detect resource leaks. The project’s
self-test notified me; I am investigating.”
Banzen bid her good hunting and turned to the monk. “If ever
you fear there are mice in your walls, listen to common
wisdom and buy four fine cats. But listen to Zjing also, and
release a single mouse among the cats every day—to make
certain they have not forgotten how to hunt.”
