Many eyeballs mean shallow bugs
By Tina Gasperson
May 1, 2008 —
(Page 1 of 2)
Software testing and quality assurance is an art, and its practitioners are creative, curious and innovative. Their perfect studio? An open-source environment, because it attracts those who are gifted at figuring out how best to put an application through its paces: “Let’s see what would happen if … ”
At the same time, SQA is serious business. End users, whether outside or inside the company, need software that simply works. The community is no slouch either when it comes to producing code as fault-free as possible. The adage, “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (aka Linus’ Law), was originally posited by Eric S. Raymond, the author of “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.”
The vulnerability to attacks of open-source applications like the Apache Web server, compared with that of proprietary server applications, such as IIS, is debatable. But open-source proponents maintain that security flaws in open source get found sooner and fixed more quickly, diminishing the number of vulnerabilities. The benefit of having many eyes looking at your code is that any failure is less likely to happen to your least suspecting user. Instead, you’ve got people who think it is fun to break stuff intentionally look for the flaws, and when they’re found, fix them immediately.
Open-source testing principles can be adopted by any company whose management is comfortable allowing employees devote a portion of their workday to testing software and reporting bugs and failures. Staffers within the IT department can act as white hat hackers with access to prerelease and alpha code, while end users in other departments can beta-test and report bugs and other difficulties.
Brian Behlendorf, CEO of CollabNet, said that it helps to make it easy for employees to report bugs they find. This means establishing a framework ahead of time, like Mozilla’s online feedback system, called Hendrix because of that rock guitarist’s penchant for using sound system feedback as part of his music. Hendrix makes it easy for users to shoot off comments and suggestions, and the page links directly to the more formal bug-reporting mechanism.
Related Search Term(s): Quality assurance
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/32046
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
|
|
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
|
|
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
|
|
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
|
|
Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions
|
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
|
|
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
|
|
RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
|
|
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
|
The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing
Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...
|
|
Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic
As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...
|
|
Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank
One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...
|
|
Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications
Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...
|