Chapter 19. Reporting What You Find

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Getting Your Bugs Fixed

• Isolating and Reproducing Bugs

• Not All Bugs Are Created Equal

• A Bug's Life Cycle

• Bug-Tracking Systems

If you stand back and look at the big picture of software testing, you'll see that it has three main tasks: test planning, actual testing, and the subject of this chapterreporting what you find.

On the surface, it may seem as though reporting the problems you discover would be the easiest of the three. Compared to the work involved in planning the testing and the skills necessary to efficiently find bugs, telling the world that you found something wrong would surely be a simpler and less time-consuming job. In reality, it may be the most importantand sometimes most difficulttask that you, as a software tester, will perform.

In this chapter you'll learn why reporting what you find is such a critical task and how to use various techniques and tools to ensure that the bugs you find are clearly communicated and given the best chance of being fixed the way they should.

Highlights of this chapter include

• Why all bugs aren't always fixed

• What you can do to make it more likely that the bugs you find are fixed

• What techniques you can use to isolate and reproduce a bug

• What a bug's life is like from birth to death

• How to track the bugs you find manually or with a database

CHICKEN LITTLE REPORTS A PROBLEM

Chicken Little was in the woods one day when an acorn fell on her head. It scared her so much she trembled all over. She shook so hard, half her feathers fell out.

"Help! Help! The sky is falling! I have to go tell the king!" Chicken Little said.

So she ran in great fright to tell the king. Along the way she met Henny Penny.

"Where are you going, Chicken Little?" asked Henny Penny.

"Oh, help! The sky is falling!" said Chicken Little.

"How do you know?" asked Henny Penny.

"I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, and part of it fell on my head!" said Chicken Little.

"This is terrible, just terrible! We'd better hurry up," said Henny Penny.

So they both ran away as fast as they could.

In this excerpt from a popular children's story, Chicken Little is startled when something unexpected occurs and proceeds to run off in hysteria, shouting to the world what she thinks is happening. Imagine what Chicken Little would do if she found a serious software bug! What do you think a project manager or a programmer would do if they saw Chicken Little and Henny Penny running their way? There are lots of interesting parallels between this simple fable and software testing. Keep it in mind as you read the rest of this chapter.