Comments on: Bugs vs. Defects, Reprise

By: Mark Jones

Mark Jones — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:04:45 +0000

Sometimes bugs aren’t defects. The term bug has a broad interpretation and therefore is a better general word for problems in software
Statement:
It is a DEFECT that the software doesn’t print this line in green.
Answer:
It’s not a DEFECT, it was never a requirement.
vs
Statement:
I put in a BUG to have this line printed in green because it looks prettier.
Answer:
Ok, we can make that change.
Well, you say, we could use an issue database and a defect database and maybe for good measure throw in another wishlist database and what have we done? We’ve made it 2-3 times as hard to get one unified report of what needs to get done before a piece of software is ready to be delivered. Calling everything a defect is like calling all soft drinks a Coke, you get the general idea, but you still have to ask “what kind of Coke do you want?”
Bug is vague as well, but it does not carry the implication that someone screwed up, that someone didn’t do their job. When in actuallity a lot of times you have people that don’t know how to use the software getting undesired results and calling things a defect. This software is “broken” when the real problem is they just don’t know what they are doing. (Quite frankly a lot of these issues are a defective UI, which is not even reported, because the focus is on the action that didn’t happen as expected, but I digress)
And part of the original complaint against bug was that the bug might get marked invalid. Well, how do you think that person will feel when their defect gets marked as invalid?
If you want to thave different flavors of bugs, defect is certainly one of those flavors, but to lump new feature requests as defects carries an overtone I don’t want to bring into groups that I lead or code in.

By: Steve Jackson

Steve Jackson — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 21:47:47 +0000

I’d suggest a distinction between defect and minor problem (incident, issue). Defects are very bad. My car blows up when you start it. That’s defective. My car idles a bit higher than I’d like. Just an issue. Bug covers the whole range, thus equating BSOD with “takes too long to…”

By: Bruce Hughes

Bruce Hughes — Sun, 29 May 2005 03:03:43 +0000

I too have been trying to encourage the use of “defect” rather than “bug.” One idea that really caught my attention from some source I have, regrettably, forgotten, was that of a Japanese company during the 1980s that referred to software defects as “spoilage.” It makes sense to me, given that what we have to spend as developers is time, and when we spend it making defective software, that effort is “spoiled,” wasted, and fundamentally unrecoverable except to the extent we learn from it.

By: Michael Chermside

Michael Chermside — Wed, 25 May 2005 07:08:15 +0000

Your statement “They had to realize that they had produced defects and that they would not necessarily be able to fix all of them for a given release.” interested me.
Usually I work hard to convince the DEVELOPMENT team that they should strive for there to be *NO* bugs (or defects), while simultaneously trying to convince the business owners that they’re never going to get rid of ALL the bugs, and they should put some off for the next release.

By: Eric Stewart

Eric Stewart — Tue, 24 May 2005 23:48:53 +0000

I will join in on saying that you aren’t alone in this line of thinking. I think it’s too easy for people to assign “bugs” to the same category as “criticism”, which many people don’t deal with very easily.
I’ve been thinking about defects (or more generally “issues”) a lot in the context of project trying to integrate the planning and addressing of defects into cycles of planned work. I like this because it identifies a defect as exactly what it is, a work task required to enhance or change the behavior of a system. In many ways a defect is just a task as you would find in a new feature or enhancement.

By: DeanG

DeanG — Tue, 24 May 2005 23:10:34 +0000

‘Anomaly’ too obscure?

By: Mike Winterthieme

Mike Winterthieme — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:55:42 +0000

I’m with you on bugs vs. defects. While defects are introduced by people (we all make mistakes), they are allowed to remain by process. Only through a good development and review process will defects be discovered and removed.

By: Laurent Bossavit

Laurent Bossavit — Tue, 24 May 2005 12:13:08 +0000

More company:
http://www.ayeconference.com/Articles/Entomology.html

By: Dave Kirby

Dave Kirby — Tue, 24 May 2005 12:06:21 +0000

Gerry Weinberg gives the same advice and for the same reasons in his excellent series of books “Quality Software Management”. I recommend they should be read by anyone interested in software, or management, or quality.

By: Eric Lechner

Eric Lechner — Tue, 24 May 2005 05:49:40 +0000

Tom DeMarco has a page or two in his book “Controlling Software Projects” (1982), specifically explaining why “defect” is a better word to him than “bug”. Look at the start of chapter 19.
The best line out of his little screed is “I believe that if we stopped assuring ourselves that bugs were allowed, there would be fewer of them.” Then, he goes on to say explain his rationale for using the term “defect” instead of “bug”, and only discusses software quality in terms of defects.