Re: First day with production development on D2005


"Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]" <velthuis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
>
> > As for reporting bugs, it depends on the cost
> > involved in reporting them vs. the benefit of reporting them.
>
> The benefit is that the bug might get fixed. I would always do that.
> Reporting a bug is like asking that it be fixed.
>
> The cost is taking some time to write the report.

It would seems to me that are many aspects of a proper cost-benefit analysis
that you might be neglecting or glossing over.

First is what is the probability that your reporting a bug will lead to its
getting fixed? I'll not labor this point except to say that rare or exotic
bugs are unlikely to get fixed and that show-stopper, common or obvious
bugs are likely to both get reported by others and maybe even get fixed.
Anyhow one needs to invest some time in downloading the bug reporting client
software, learning to use it and then searching to see if your bug has
already been reported.

Second the amount of time to properly report a bug can be considerable what
with developing a reproducible scenario which often involves additional
coding and testing. Then you need to document it in an understandable
manner. This is usually over and above the work-around time necessary to
continue product development.

Time is money and most of us have a pretty good feel for what all this time
costs either our employer or directly in our lost consulting fees.

Can one expect a reasonable ROI on the investment of scarce resources taking
into account the full cost of reporting bugs, factoring in the likelihood
that it will get fixed and that sometime in the future one will benefit by
the fix being included in an update or new release.

It should not be surprising that many cost conscious managers decide to just
not bother reporting bugs and if the development environment has too many
bugs deciding to move on to another environment.




.

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