5 Most Common Bug Writing Errors: Day #2

If you don’t state the Reproducibility of the bug clearly, then the team will not be able to establish an accurate Priority for it. You must state very clearly whether the bug happens Always, is Intermittent, or has only been Seen Once.

Error #2:
Unclear Reproducibility

If it only occurs sometimes or most of the time, you must state “how-many-times-it-occurred” out of “how many times you attempted to reproduce it”; the “X out of Y”.

• 2 out of 10 = 20%
• 20 out of 100 = 20%

Both of these examples show the same percentage. Which numbers would you have more confidence in? I hope you chose the second one. A sample size of 100 should give you far more confidence than a sample size of 10.

If the bug has only occurred once and you have tried to reproduce it several times, state that. State how many times you attempted to reproduce the bug and were unable to. Then keep this bug in mind so that if you see it again, you can update the information in the bug with your latest results.

As a bonus tip: Keep a ready “Most Wanted” list at your workstation of bugs that you have only Seen Once. This way, if you ever encounter them again, you won’t have to search laboriously through the bugbase to find them.

You can just look at your list, navigate to your bug, and update it with your new information. This will save you a great deal of time and effort as you progress through your projects.

Saving you time from endless searching will mean that you are able to focus on the more important testing and reporting issues. This will make you appear even more efficient and productive; always a good thing for the aspiring Quality Assurance Professional.