Bug Reporting, Error Handling, Error Monitoring – Definition and Best Practices
Overview
With the advancement of coding and its use in everyone’s life, and with the abundance of its presence in the world comes the fact that it is written by humans, mostly at least, at the end of the day. This logically means that error will occur and won’t be foreseen in many cases. Some errors will be detected quickly and some will need intense processing to be spotted or realized.
In this article, we will discuss and explain what bug reporting, error handling and error monitoring mean. We will also see some of their use cases and examples of each, before viewing the importance of tracking bugs and errors. Then, we will see the similarities and differences between these concepts and some of the best practices while dealing with them.
What do these terms mean?
Bug reporting
Bug reporting is an important aspect of software testing. An effective bug report communicates well with the development team and avoids confusion or miscommunication.Defect writing and reporting is one of the most important areas in testing life cycle and is one of the most neglected areas.
Error Handling
Error handling refers to the anticipation, detection, and resolution of programming, application, and communications errors. Specialized programs, called error handlers, are available for some applications. They should forestall errors if possible, recover from them when they occur without terminating the application, or, if all else fails, gracefully terminate an affected application and save the error information to a log file.
Error Monitoring
When errors happen in a production environment, they can be detrimental to application performance. Errors could be exceptions not handled by the code in the context of a business transaction, caught exception in a database call, and HTTP 404 errors.
Errors are tracked with data about how many of them occurred in a period of time, the frequency with which they occur , and error rate of the total process.
Use Cases & Examples
Bug Reporting can be done by any individual using any sort of platform, and it would always help the developer, when used properly.
This page explains in detail the methods to follow when writing an effective Bug Report.
Error Handling is a very essential stage in every program’s lifecycle, it is handled more on the developers’ level than the direct user, and is managed by powerful software.
Error Monitoring is also a production-level stage, but can extend, and should, to the execution level where the user is interacting with the code. It can be monitored using various methods, one of which is this effective tool by Bugsnag or Rollbar.
Why is it important to track bugs and errors, and what can go wrong if you don’t?
As long as humans will be writing codes, there will be error by nature. This is not the problem, as this is a natural process that every program or platform will go under to develop and advance. But problems occur when those errors go unreported and unnoticed. Bugs and errors need to be identified, tracked, monitored, analyzed and fixed at later stages, and the more accurate and useful data a company has, the more control they have over the process of enhancing their product.
What are the similarities and differences between them?
An error is a mistake, misconception, or misunderstanding on the part of a software developer. In the category of developer we include software engineers, programmers, analysts, and testers. For example, a developer may misunderstand a design notation, or a programmer might type a variable name incorrectly – leads to an error. It is the one which is generated because of wrong login, loop or due to syntax. Error normally arises in software; it leads to change the functionality of the program.
On the other hand, a bug is the result of a coding error. An error found in the development environment before the product is shipped to the customer. A programming error that causes a program to work poorly, produce incorrect results or crash. An error in software or hardware that causes a program to malfunction. Bug is terminology of Tester.
For more info, check this informative page.
Best practices for handling bugs and errors
Bug reporting is an important aspect of software testing. A good bug report should be clear and concise without missing key points. Any lack of clarity leads to misunderstanding and slows down the development process. Defect writing and reporting is one of the most important areas in testing life cycle and is one of the most neglected areas. Reports should include all, or as much as possible, of those things:
Bug ID, Bug Title, priority, platform, description, steps to reproduce, expected result (or actual if known), screenshot (if it has a visual effect).
Errors on the other hand should be dealt with the same level of professionalism, as they need to be under supervision and filled with a near live-time into a log that would help the developer identify patterns and future converges, and this can be only achieved when using a powerful tool that would track the errors with the greatest details, supplying the environment with valuable data that would place the coder ahead of the game.
Closing Thoughts
We have seen the definition of bug reporting, error handling and error monitoring. After that, we saw different use cases and examples of use for the three of them. Later on, I explained why is it important to perform some of those tasks, and the problematic complications that would occur if not enough attention was paid.
Furthermore, we have seen the differences and the similarities between errors and bugs and how do they differ by definition. We wen then over the importance of following appropriate practices while dealing with bugs and errors, finished with brief closing thoughts.
References
How to Write a Good Bug Report? Tips and Tricks
http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/how-to-write-good-bug-report/
What is Error Handling
http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/error-handling
Difference between Defect, Error, Bug, Failure and Fault!
Error Monitoring
https://www.appdynamics.com/opscentral/error-monitoring/