January 11, 2021 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Responsibility for Bugs
January 11, 2021 at 9:29 pm
Just a couple observations on this.
First, we always need to be sure we focus first on fixing bugs instead of who is responsible. I fear sometimes that is not the way those outside our IT environment see it. I've commented many times on here and elsewhere about the difficulty we can face in getting bug fixes released to production.
Second, the definition of 'bugs' themselves can be difficult. One person's bug may be someone else's feature. We often hear 'that is just the way it works', or 'that is the way the data is given to us', or to quote Hillary, 'What difference does it make?'.
Third, those who are not personally affected by bugs are not going to be nearly as interested in getting things fixed.
I have a piece of software that I have used through a number of releases since 1986, with actual data going back to 1943. Part of this package has what I personally consider to be a major design error, but which the owning company adamantly feels is a good design.
Further, the user community is divided on the issue with a number of us feeling it should be fixed while another group who are not so effected by it don't feel it is a problem. As the use of the package has evolved over the years, and as the user community has also evolved there has been a change in focus and priority of probably the majority of users while there are the dwindling number of faithful users who now have to tolerate the problems.
So the question becomes not only who is responsible FOR the bugs, but also to WHOM they are responsible. And I suppose that the more developers are separated by time from the development and support effort the less THEY feel responsible.
Welcome to our world!
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
January 11, 2021 at 9:33 pm
Certainly a complex situation. I see plenty of things in SQL Server I might argue are bugs, but MS feels these are designs.
It is easy to blame people for bugs, and getting past that to use mistakes, bugs, etc. as teaching moments is hard. It seems too many managers can't get past blame.
January 11, 2021 at 9:57 pm
Reminds me of an event many years ago in which I was working to find a bug in existing code of which I had nothing to do with the development. While researching this, my boss came into my office and remarked "Haven't you fixed that yet? It should be easy".
My quick somewhat irritated response was "Jeff, if it's so easy why don't you do it yourself?" That got me an interview with two of the owners of the company.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
January 11, 2021 at 10:24 pm
When you say interview...
Probation? Exit?
Or actual meaningful dialog?
January 12, 2021 at 12:58 am
Fortunately just a stern lecture about 'you don't talk to your boss that way. He's the boss'. Actually, shortly after I moved on, they got rid of him quite abruptly.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
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