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Poll

How tolerant are you with bugs in software?

Completely intolerant
Minor bugs are OK
Minor bugs are OK *IF* there's nothing else available
Major bugs are OK
Major bugs are OK *IF* there's nothing else available
What's a bug?
Other... (Explain below)

Last post Author Topic: What Are Your Views On BUGS?  (Read 32449 times)

Renegade

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What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« on: February 02, 2008, 09:31 PM »
I'm curious about what people's views on bugs are.

I'm fairly tolerant if the software really helps me get things done and there's nothing else available. I use some software with some pretty major bugs, but everything else it does for me is SOOOO valuable that there's no way I'd abandon it.

For software where there are many alternatives, I'll abandon something in a heartbeat for something else and am very intolerant.
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

housetier

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2008, 10:07 PM »
I can tolerate bugs for so long until I have gotten used to them; however, if a bug interrupts my flow I am very intolerant, even more so when the developer does not respond to bug reports or off-handedly declares them "features, you have to get a long with".

Mind you, I also view lack of "tweakyness" a bug, I want to make the program work the way I think and do.

mrainey

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2008, 10:17 PM »
If a program has quite a few bugs, I find myself a little less confident in the accuracy of its output.  Thinking mostly here of programs that are geared toward number crunching.
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CodeTRUCKER

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2008, 11:36 PM »
I am always quite vocal about software that misses the mark, including my own. >:(  If a bug becomes apparent I "squash" it.  Bugs that I haven't able to deal with have been responsible for starting from scratch in doing a complete re-write.  :-[

Renegade

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2008, 01:30 AM »
... Bugs that I haven't able to deal with have been responsible for starting from scratch in doing a complete re-write.  :-[

Ouch! That must have been a nasty bug!

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

CodeTRUCKER

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #5 on: February 03, 2008, 01:35 AM »
... Bugs that I haven't able to deal with have been responsible for starting from scratch in doing a complete re-write.  :-[

Ouch! That must have been a nasty bug!


Technically, it may not really be a "bug."  I had failed to model properly before I started coding and my architecture limits didn't show up until about the 2nd beta. <Calvin gets charlie horse while trying to kick himself in the rump>  :-[

Live and learn! :)  ... and thanks for the sympathy.

nosh

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #6 on: February 03, 2008, 04:30 AM »
I used to think I was completely intolerant to bugs but then came along X2 which invariably crashes a few times a day (the author blames shell extensions and one assumes he knows what he's talking about) but the fact remains, if I stopped using it, the crashes would stop too. It has however ended up becoming a very essential part of my system and it'd take a lot for me to dump it. Mind you, this is a category where there are several good replacements... the pros can sometimes outweigh the cons.

mnemonic

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2008, 04:47 AM »
I guess that in this world of high competition, companies earn more money through the addition of new features than squashing bugs.  More new features mean more bugs and the vicious cycle continues.

In Bruce Schneier's book "Secrets and Lies", he cites a piece of research from Carnegie Mellon University that every thousand lines contain five to fifteen bugs, so constantly adding new features means adding lots of new bugs too.  It seems like the software world is one big beta at times...

Slightly off-topic, Secrets and Lies is great book on computer security - Bruce Schneier's got a really enjoyable writing style:

http://www.amazon.co...202035441&sr=8-2

Wow, that's pessimistic for a Sunday morning  ;)

harmonv

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2008, 07:39 AM »
I used to think I was completely intolerant to bugs but then came along X2 which invariably crashes a few times a day (the author blames shell extensions and one assumes he knows what he's talking about) but the fact remains, if I stopped using it, the crashes would stop too. It has however ended up becoming a very essential part of my system and it'd take a lot for me to dump it. Mind you, this is a category where there are several good replacements... the pros can sometimes outweigh the cons.

I wonder if anyone would write a program to convert all your work in X2 over to another file manager.  Maybe DC's "Request a program" might be a good solution.  Who knows, perhaps someone has already done it and figured no-one else would need/want it.
<just wondering>
« Last Edit: February 03, 2008, 08:03 AM by harmonv »

tinjaw

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2008, 07:54 AM »
I'm one of the "other" votes.

I'm a programmer so I am just looking out for my vested interest.  :P J/K

As I programmer, I know that bugs are inevitable. I judge bugs in a relative light. If it is a piece of shareware by one developer I am a lot more tolerant than a commercial application developed by an entire company that has a QA team.

There is one type of bug, however, that is never acceptable - data loss and/or corruption. This is the cardinal sin and developers should be, rightfully, chastised for such bugs.

umeca74

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2008, 08:18 AM »
nosh, if you are talking about crashes on exit, these are invariably not xplorer2's fault. You don't see them in other file managers (maybe) because x2's advanced threading architecture reveals bugs in shell extensions (mostly in delphi) using static objects. There's nothing I can do about it!

and the obvious workaround is not to quit x2 :)
you can minimize it in your syste tray if you prefer to have it out of sight

ThalSwe

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #11 on: February 03, 2008, 08:32 AM »
I only mind them when they interupt my regular usage to a point where it ruins the flow or simply double the time it takes to do whatever I ask of it. If its something minor that can be worked around or a more major bug that is in a part of the program I seldom/rarely/never use, then I can live with it and let the bug be alive.

To much bug killing these days. Didnt we just do that when we were young? ;)

nosh

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #12 on: February 03, 2008, 08:38 AM »
I wonder if anyone would write a program to convert all your work in X2 over to another file manager.  Maybe DC's "Request a program" might be a good solution.  Who knows, perhaps someone has already done it and figured no-one else would need/want it.

That would be _quite_ a task since X2 has been in development for several years, previously under the name 2X Explorer.

Nikos, the crashes are usually on exit - it has crashed a couple of times during some heavy processing dealing with file comments (ADS) but this is not a common occurrence and I don't have any crash dumps or relevant data so there's no point discussing it.

Regarding the crashes on exit, is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one.

tinjaw

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2008, 08:46 AM »
Regarding the crashes on exit, is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one.

I know this isn't what you were asking, but it is a good time to mention the generic debugging technique of "halfing". You cut out half of the stuff. If the problem doesn't go away, you take out half of the remaining stuff, etc. If, after you take out half of the stuff and the problem goes away, you switch halfs and repeat the process.

The "real" answer to your question involves using a debugger and attaching to the process.

Darwin

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #14 on: February 03, 2008, 09:12 AM »
I went with other. It's all about the context, baby!

My concern isn't so much bugs per se, but how gracefully, promptly and effectively a "cure" is made available when bugs arise. If the application is actively developed and the developer/developement team are pleasant, then I can tolerate bugs because I am confident that the bug will be fixed. If fixes never come and all I read/hear is defensiveness and a litany of excuses - usually that it's the end user's or another application's fault - then I am less happy about bugs...

NB If the fault DOES lie with the end-user's system config and/or another application in conflict with the app and this is effectively communicated, then I can accept that if I am affected it will be up to me to either harrass the other applications' development team for a fix, live with the bug, or lose one of the conflicting applications...

nosh

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #15 on: February 03, 2008, 09:35 AM »
I see where you're going but I have a feeling there may be more than one culprit involved in this case... I was thinking on lines of identifying the delphi binaries.

The "real" answer to your question involves using a debugger and attaching to the process.

Tried attaching it to W32Dasm - they both crashed... :)



mrainey

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #16 on: February 03, 2008, 01:10 PM »
I bought a license for x2 a couple years ago, but had to find something else because it wouldn't reliably retain its settings on my system.  That was an example of an intolerable bug.
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Renegade

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #17 on: February 03, 2008, 01:12 PM »
...
As I programmer, I know that bugs are inevitable. I judge bugs in a relative light. If it is a piece of shareware by one developer I am a lot more tolerant than a commercial application developed by an entire company that has a QA team.

There is one type of bug, however, that is never acceptable - data loss and/or corruption. This is the cardinal sin and developers should be, rightfully, chastised for such bugs.

I'll have to agree whole heartedly there. I am much more forgiving of small developers than of large software development houses.

But data loss truly is a major sin... For me it depends on how severe it is. If i lose a few minor edits during a session - so what (again, not for large/major companies though). That I don't mind. If my entire file is corrupted, then that's just evil.

Some of the most important software that I use is from small developers and has bugs that have caused minor data loss. This hasn't been a big problem as the value I get far exceeds that.




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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Lashiec

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #18 on: February 03, 2008, 01:20 PM »
My view is: "Major bugs are OK *IF* there's nothing else available *AND* if using the program does not piss me off"

I'm in a such situation right now. One app that I used as a frontend for other programs it's abandoned. The program was bug-ridden before the developer released the last version with the promise to release new versions more often (previously, it was semi abandoned during various months). Then, after a couple of months, the guy disappeared off the face of the Earth. Two years have passed since then, without any person picking up its development (the program is open source), although there's some community around it trying to improve it via resource hacking, and using the expandability built into the program.

But too much time passed, mere "patches" (not code patches) are doing nothing to fix the bugs, and I have so many reservations about the program that I consider it as non-functional right now, so many usability issues it has that IMO a full rewrite is needed. Unfortunately, though there are many other options, no one can match some of the features the program has, so what do I do? Reconsider the functionality I need, lowering my demands to only the basic functions, and choose another option. At least, I won't have to waste hours trying to set up the damn thing whenever a major change in the programs it assists occurrs.

Some other thing it's going on with another program, a frontend as well. The guy developing it simply does not have a roadmap of what functionality he wants to add to the program. He even claimed a couple of times that he's abandoning the project because he's not even using it, it's only natural he does not know what he wants inside it, so he implements functions in what I call "programming bursts": he adds many features out of nowhere and releases the program. What happens then? Major bugs arise, the guy cannot fix them, gets angry, and removes the features altogether.

Well, until recently he maintained a clean programming routine, improving the program without removing nothing. But one day, he decided the program had too much fluff: he started to remove features, encountered some bugs, and decided to remove the functions affected. The result? Now I have a program that forced me to change the way the data it interacts with is stored in the computer, affecting other software that use the same data (pissing me off in the process), and it's dumbed down so much that it's a mere reflection of what it used to be (pissing me off even more). Solution? Bye, bye, dumb frontend, and hello, old friend (another program I used in the past that has many more functionality that its competitor right now)

Fun fact: The program replacing the first frontend is programmed by the same guy as the one being replaced in the second story.

EDIT: Proof reading and some rewriting.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2008, 06:42 PM by Lashiec »

mouser

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #19 on: February 03, 2008, 01:31 PM »
Personally I think bugs are intolerable, inexcusable, and grounds for uninstalling a program.

Except when they are in programs i write, then they are just minor inconveniences barely worth mentioning.

jgpaiva

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #20 on: February 03, 2008, 01:44 PM »
Except when they are in programs i write, then they are just minor inconveniences barely worth mentioning.
;D ;D

Truth is that when i started making coding snacks for DC, my view on bugs and developers suffered a major change. I am now way more tolerant with bugs, and don't get mad at the developers anymore when my program crashes and takes my computer with it (unless i was doing something important... which i always am :P ).

justice

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #21 on: February 04, 2008, 01:30 AM »
Its important to know as a programmer just because technically the issue is minor doesn't mean the end user impact is. Judge fixing bugs by the impact it has on the end user: for example having a contact form on a company's website not work in a particular browser is major even though it could be a few lines of javascript that need fixing. It's easy to forget about it.

umeca74

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #22 on: February 04, 2008, 02:39 AM »
is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one
-nosh

yes, use process explorer to see a list of DLLs in xplorer2, then make a note of the crash address and you've got your culprit!

nosh

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #23 on: February 04, 2008, 03:52 AM »
is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one
-nosh

yes, use process explorer to see a list of DLLs in xplorer2, then make a note of the crash address and you've got your culprit!

Great!  :up: Thanks.

Renegade

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Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?
« Reply #24 on: February 04, 2008, 06:10 AM »
Wow. There is really quite a diverse set of opinions here.

Mouser -- you made me laugh there! :) Nice one!
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker