> Why is it that these hard core test advocates always seem to assume that all bugs are of the former sort?
It's probably for the same reason that evangelists for certain programming styles will dogmatically insist that you shouldn't have more than X lines of code or Y levels of nesting in your functions, without reference to things like the nature of the programming language or the essential complexity of the algorithm to be implemented.
Inexperienced people tend to overgeneralise from their own experience, and those who have only ever worked in one small part of the programming world are the most disadvantaged of all.
It's probably for the same reason that evangelists for certain programming styles will dogmatically insist that you shouldn't have more than X lines of code or Y levels of nesting in your functions, without reference to things like the nature of the programming language or the essential complexity of the algorithm to be implemented. Inexperienced people tend to overgeneralise from their own experience, and those who have only ever worked in one small part of the programming world are the most disadvantaged of all.