Friday, September 11, 2009

Who decides what is a bug and what should be fixed?




I was submitting a proposal for a paper for STC 2009 conference. After completing all fields – about 20 of them , I accidently hit clear button (by practice – “OK” or “submit” button appears first in such forms) and all that I entered is “gone” – worst there is no way to recover.


Is this a bug?

Another catch – for the date field – no format is specified, neither there is a calendar control. How do I find out the required format? Try one and get to know about the format.

Is this a bug?

If you were a tester who would strictly go by “test cases” generated out of “specifications” – you are likely to miss such bugs – remember there is something called “Requirement based testing”. Alternatively, you might argue that these are not bugs or bugs of low severity. Who has the final authority to say which is a bug and which one should be fixed and when?

Shrini