The software assumes that something will be entered, developer tells fish.

"I reminded him that assuming doesn't prevent a help desk operator from accidentally pressing the Enter key without entering data," fish says. "The installer and developer immediately jumped into the code to fix the problem.

"One hour later, all was ready for me to enter the next test problem. I entered an asterisk -- the '*' character -- into the first field and pressed Enter. The product crashed again.

"Frowns were displayed, and the installer and developer got back to work.

"I wasn't asked to enter any more test problems. The software went live -- with issues.