Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [bug]

Meta-tag about bugs. Please don't use this.

142 questions
282
votes
22 answers

Leaving intentional bugs in code for testers to find

We don't do this at our firm, but one of my friends says that his project manager asked every developer to add intentional bugs just before the product goes to QA. This is how it works: Just before the product goes to QA, the development team adds…
Krishnabhadra
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128
votes
16 answers

Is there any way to get faster at solving bugs? I've just had a warning from my boss

I've just been told by my boss that I will receive a negative performance review on Monday. He wants to talk to me about why I am so slow and why my bug fix rate is so low. I love programming and solving problems but I actually do find my job really…
user90636
108
votes
11 answers

What kind of bugs do "goto" statements lead to? Are there any historically significant examples?

I understand that save for breaking out of loops nested in loops; the goto statement is evaded and reviled as a bug prone style of programming, to never be used. Alt Text: "Neal Stephenson thinks it's cute to name his labels 'dengo' " See the…
Anon
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79
votes
15 answers

Is it possible to reach absolute zero bug state for large scale software?

I am talking about 20-30+ millions lines of code, software at the scale and complexity of Autodesk Maya for example. If you freeze the development as long as it needs to be, can you actually fix all the bugs until there is simply not a single bug,…
Joan Venge
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74
votes
19 answers

How come compilers are so reliable?

We use compilers on a daily basis as if their correctness is a given, but compilers are programs too, and can potentially contain bugs. I always wondered about this infallible robustness. Have you ever encountered a bug in the compiler itself? What…
EpsilonVector
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72
votes
9 answers

Can we assume while testing software that a user wouldn't perform such silly actions on software?

For example: While performing functional testing of a form in a web application, we will test the fields by entering different kind of random input values. In general, we as users of the web application do not actually enter random values into…
Nagarani Dubbaka
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71
votes
17 answers

Is it reasonable to insist on reproducing every defect before diagnosing and fixing it?

I work for a software product company. We have large enterprise customers who implement our product and we provide support to them. For example, if there is a defect, we provide patches, etc. In other words, It is a fairly typical setup. Recently, a…
amphibient
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69
votes
16 answers

Should organizations penalize developers for the amount of defect reports filed against code they worked on?

Should organizations penalize developers for defect reports filed against their work products? I was having a discussion with my friend where he asks if a manager taking the number of defects filed against a developer is justified. My take is no,…
zengr
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66
votes
7 answers

After years of working alone, other developers will finally see my (buggy) code. What should I do?

I have been working on a system alone for about four years. I have built it from the ground up. It is not a perfect system. It is very complex, it is buggy, and the business is now becoming aware of this. After all this time, other developers at the…
w0051977
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59
votes
8 answers

Story points for bug fixing tasks: Is it suitable for Scrum?

I'm just wondering if we should assign story points to bug fixing tasks or not. JIRA, our issues-tracking software, does not have story point field for Bug type issues (it's only for Storys and Epics). Should we add the Bug issue type to the…
palacsint
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58
votes
12 answers

What programming language generates fewest hard-to-find bugs?

What language, in your opinion, allows the average programmer to output features with the least amount of hard-to-find bugs? This is of course, a very broad question, and I'm interested in very broad and general answers and wisdoms. Personally I…
Magnus Wolffelt
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53
votes
10 answers

What's a schrödinbug?

This wiki page tells : A schrödinbug is a bug that manifests only after someone reading source code or using the program in an unusual way notices that it never should have worked in the first place, at which point the program promptly stops…
Pacerier
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48
votes
1 answer

What is an untriaged bug?

I am an undergrad studying Computer Science. When I tried reporting bugs to several projects, I came across the classification untriaged a lot. A web search didn't really explain what this means. Could you tell me what an untriaged bug is?
user
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44
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9 answers

Code maintenance: To add comments in code or to just leave it to the version control?

We have been asked to add comments with start tags, end tags, description, solution etc for each change that we make to the code as part of fixing a bug / implementing a CR. My concern is, does this provide any added value? As it is, we have all the…
Chillax
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43
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7 answers

Software bug vs. software corruption

While investigating Wikipedia article on Qantas Flight 72 I've found "Potential trigger types" section that says (emphasis mine): A number of potential trigger types were investigated, including software bugs, software corruption, hardware faults,…
trejder
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