Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Bug Hunting and Reporting

  Is there any difference between Bug hunting and Software testing? question raised in my mind while thinking about tracing bugs.Many software tester at their initial period of career including me,thought that Software testing means only finding out bugs,is that so?

Well,my answer by half year of experience is definately NO.

Bug Hunting is just  but crucial part of Software testing.

Generally we consider software testing consist of 
1)Analysing requirement specification document.
2)Creating test scenario.
3)Writing test cases and preparing test data with respect to that scenarios.
4)Performing test cases.
5)Reporting bugs.

 Bug hunting lies between point no 4 and 5.

When we got a scenario where we feels that we can find out bug,but if that scenario is not well cleared,then finding out a clear scenario where we can produce that bug can be referred as BUG HUNTING.

Bug Hunting can not be taught,only guidance is needed, it is a skill mainly depends on logical thinking and memory of tester.

While testing, tester should ask,What will happen if I did this this ,before performing operation.

As we can create infinity testcases for any scenario,we should select high severity-high priority test cases,it can possible by only logical thinking,because we can't perform all test cases (Tester prefer this type of testing as Exhaustive Testing ).

Sometimes ,Tester got many bugs while smoke testing itself,but it becomes very difficult to reproduce that bug ,as steps are not performed according to test cases in smoke testing,thus becomes difficult to remember steps.Having good memory helps in this situation a lot.

We have many screen saver software or selenium itself for saving testing steps can resolve above problem.

BUG REPORTING is not just for informing developers about bugs.Some precautions should be taken by testers such as

1)Language of report should be simpler.
    Use simple words,Avoid complexity in sentence framing.
2)Bug report should be precise.
    Reduce number of sentences in report without affecting meaning.
3)Use polite language.Don't blame developers for bug.
4)Give 'Steps to reproduce' from the scratch,so that there will not be any confusion to developer about bug.
5)Attach snapshot wherever it is necessary.

How to reduce number of sentences to achieve precision in bug report?Again the answer is bug hunting and 'FILTRATION OF SCENARIO'.
1)Write down all steps from which bug can reproduced for own purpose in rough.
2)Try to filter scenario by reducing each possible step.
3)Find out minimum criteria for which bug can produced.

Lets take a example,
If we got a bug X with step A,step B ,step C and step D.
Then perform operations  by removing each step respectively.
If possible, then we may got the same bug with step B and Step D.
 
Because of above filtration,scenario reduced to minimum statements which causes to reduce time,effort and confusion of developers. so that Indirectly optimising quality of product.

Never forget,We testers are not responsible only for finding bugs but quality of product also.




 

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