"Incompetent", in special if you use it without any further qualification, is not usually meant as "incompetent at a particular thing at a particular time".
I'd say that pretty much everyone is completely incompetent when it comes to correctly implement a complicated piece of software like GCC. OTOH, the people who develop GCC are incredibly competent at what they do because the compiler does insanely complicated things the vast majority of the human race would struggle to comprehend and, yet, its surprisingly correct, with the occasional bug and confusion here and there.
We all work at the limits of our wits. Right now I'm waiting for a timeout so I can continue to test a hypothesis. If I am lucky, I'll be right and the system will malfunction in the way I expect it to. I'd say my chances at this point are 50/50.
In the context of malice vs. incompetence, malice certainly doesn't refer to an innate quality you possess all the time, so why would the alternative mean that?
> with the occasional bug and confusion here and there
And the point of this thread was talking about a big batch of bugs, the opposite of "occasional".
I'd say that pretty much everyone is completely incompetent when it comes to correctly implement a complicated piece of software like GCC. OTOH, the people who develop GCC are incredibly competent at what they do because the compiler does insanely complicated things the vast majority of the human race would struggle to comprehend and, yet, its surprisingly correct, with the occasional bug and confusion here and there.
We all work at the limits of our wits. Right now I'm waiting for a timeout so I can continue to test a hypothesis. If I am lucky, I'll be right and the system will malfunction in the way I expect it to. I'd say my chances at this point are 50/50.