Skip to main content

Do your bugs lurk?

Adam Barr has a great post about debugging: Software Engineering Goal: Expose Bugs Faster in which he suggests that the critical task in improving software engineering is decreasing, not the bug count, but the lurkability of bugs.

FoxPro is terrible for lurking bugs. Think of C5 errors. If you have a missing object pointer somewhere, it will generate a C5 error. but not immediately - just later on at some point in time.

Yes, we know about some resolutions to this (Don't Return Inside With), but it's a great example of a lurker.

Which is one of the reasons why tools such as Coverage Profiler and FoxUnit exist - (read Eric Sink's great post about Code Coverage). It's also one of the reasons behind my earlier work on the Code Analyst, as part of VFPX.

I'm getting ready to get started on building further betas on this (Randy Jean had asked me about it at the beginning of last month and I have been too buried to get into it). We've already got a list of some of the more basic checks to find lurking bugs (such as looking for RETURNS inside ENDWITH) as well as more cosmetic ones.

If you haven't seen the earlier versions of it, you can see a little of it in action here.

What tips do you use to catch your lurking bugs?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

MS has just introduced their portal and it's pretty comprehensive. Nothing quite like learning that some people use AIM instead of MSN messenger, or that there really may be a need for supporting 4 monitors ( Cyrus Complains ) However, it's really a great sign that MS is serious about supporting the blogging community which seems to have um, exploded in size in the past year. Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com
1 comment
Read more

Elevating Project Specifications with Three Insightful ChatGPT Prompts

For developers and testers, ChatGPT, the freely accessible tool from OpenAI, is game-changing. If you want to learn a new programming language, ask for samples or have it convert your existing code. This can be done in Visual Studio Code (using GitHub CoPilot) or directly in the ChatGPT app or web site.  If you’re a tester, ChatGPT can write a test spec or actual test code (if you use Jest or Cypress) based on existing code, copied and pasted into the input area. But ChatGPT can be of huge value for analysts (whether system or business) who need to validate their needs. There’s often a disconnect between developers and analysts. Analysts complain that developers don’t build what they asked for or ask too many questions. Developers complain that analysts haven’t thought of obvious things. In these situations, ChatGPT can be a great intermediary. At its worst, it forces you to think about and then discount obvious issues. At best, it clarifies the needs into documented requirements. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Programmers vs. Developers vs. Architects

I received an email this morning from Brandon Savage 's newsletter. Brandon's a PHP guru (works at Mozilla) but his newsletter and books have some great overall perspectives for developers of all languages. However, this last one (What's the difference between developers and architects?) kind of rubs me the wrong way. Either that, or I've just missed the natural inflation of job descriptions. (maybe, it's like the change in terminology between Garbage man and Waste Engineer or Secretary and Office Administrator) So maybe it's just me - but I think there's still a big difference between Programmer, Developer and then of course, architect. The key thing here is that every role has a different perspective and every one of those perspectives has value. The original MSF create roles like Product Manager, Program Manager, Developer, Tester, etc - so every concept may pigeon hole people into different roles. But the statements Brandon makes are often distinction...
12 comments
Read more