#lessonslearnedinsoftwaretesting

"Never exaggerate your bugs. Your credibility is fundamental to your influence. If you make the bugs you report seem more serious than they really are, you'll lose influence. Don't rank a bug as 'serious' that would normally be classed as 'minor' just to get it added attention" Excerpt from the book “Lessons Learned In Software Testing”.

"Nonreproducible bugs are reproducible. Failures occur under specific conditions. If you know the conditions, you can recreate a failure. If you don't know the critical conditions, you probably cannot recreate the failure. When you encounter a bug that you can't reproduce, there must be something important that you're not noticing. If you could find out what that condition is, you could recreate the bug". Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

"The summary line is the most important line in the bug report. This field, sometimes called the headline or the title, is critically important because the project manager, other managers and executives will read it when reviewing lists of bugs that haven't been or won't be fixed. Bugs with weak headlines might be dismissed during bug triage meetings. [For your summary line] pick what is most important for your report and leave the rest to the report's detailed description sections". Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

"Always report nonreproducible errors; they may be ticking time bombs. Nonreproducible errors can be the most expensive bugs your company might release. Sometimes the program misbehaves in a way that you can't replicate. You see the failure once, but don't know how to get it again. If that happens to a customer, it will erode confidence in the product. Programmers have tools that you don't have. If you report the symptoms clearly, the programmer can often trace through the code, asking how you could have gotten a certain message or what could possibly have happened when you were looking at a given dialog or clicking on a given control. It is not unreasonable to believe that programmers can fix *20 percent of the 'nonreproducible' bugs that are reported to them." *Obviously, the percentage can vary across products and toolsets available to the programmers. Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

"Keep clear the difference between severity and priority. Severity refers to the impact or consequence of the bug. Priority indicates when your company wants it fixed. Severity does not change unless you learn more about hidden consequences. Priorities change as a project progresses." Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

"Minor bugs are worth reporting and fixing. Minor errors confuse customers and reduce customer confidence in the rest of the product. Any product can get by with a few minor defects. But as the number increases, customer confidence declines. More disturbing is the corrupting effects of tolerating these bugs. At the point that you stop even reporting minor bugs (some companies pressure their staff to report only 'worthwhile' errors), you'll find yourself and your company tolerating more and more serious ones. Down that road lies product failure." Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

"A tester who can't report bugs well is like a refrigerator light that's only on when the door is closed. The situation may be illuminated very well - just not so that it matters. You are an information service, but to be effective you need to do more than fill out report templates and assume they are fully understood. Learn how to write and present your test results so that they get results." Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".

Lesson 55 - "You are what you write. Bug reports are the primary work product of most testers. These documents mold your readers' perception of you. The better your reports, the better your reputation. Everyone benefits if you take the time to research and write your reports well." Excerpt from the book "Lessons Learned In Software Testing".