Bugs… with a human touch

“Dealing with yesterday’s bugs keeps part of our attention away from today’s bugs” – This statement from http://blogs.msdn.com/james_whittaker/archive/2008/08/11/if-microsoft-is-so-good-at-testing-why-does-your-software-suck.aspx by james whittaker grabbed my attention since I previously remember similar words from one of my manger before.

In today’s software projects I feel bugs are treated humanlike. Last week my colleague asked me “What is the life of a bug?” To which my answer was - the bug is born when you find one in the program under test, the bug is issued a birth-certificate when it’s logged in the bug tracker.

A developer who listened to our conversation expressed to torture it (bug). To which my reply was – the bug might die of a heart attack, or might have a slow death or might live in the dark stomaching your torture, until a day when he breaks loose, forms an army of his own or even better becomes a gladiator and takes down your empire.

My previous manager used to address bugs as – “yesterdays”, “todays” and so on. When bugs were categorized to set priorities, he used to question us “why are you finding yesterday’s bugs?” To which – I had no reply since, yesterday I was not in the project, and I was assigned to the project today.

Today when I read the above statement from James, I wonder are bugs bugs or we have newborns, infants, teenagers, adults, married, divorced, old age, sick, happy, ……, today’s, yesterday’s, tomorrow’s, bugs.

I thought harder what yesterday bug could mean

:-) Does it mean bug in previous version of the program which broke the prison?
:-) Does it mean bug reported by customer when he was just born?
:-) Does it mean bug found after formal release of the product?
:-) Does it mean bug reported by client in previous phase?
:-) Does it mean bug found today which was not unearthed yesterday, but was supposed to be found yesterday?
:-) Does it mean bug in previous version which today is well settled with family and leading a happy life with humans?
:-) Does it mean bug was caught yesterday, but let loose after counseling to wear the seat belt?
:-) Does it mean bug found today is the daughter of yesterday’s bug?

After making the above points I re looked at the quote “Dealing with yesterday’s bugs keeps part of our attention away from today’s bugs” and I felt may be I got carried away what if my mission was “Find today’s bugs”. Well, how do I do it?

Guys please help…

Disclaimer: All the blogs shared by me are my ideas, my thought, my understanding of the subject and does not represent any of my employer’s ideas, thought, plans or strategies.

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