Essay - Defect Traclomg One of the Biggest Problems Private Consumers, Software...

Defect Traclomg

One of the biggest problems private consumers, s*****tware developers and businesses face as they use computers is software bugs, or defects in the programming that cause the software to malfunction. Bugs may be min*****, such as one part of a drop-down menu not working, but with other w*****ys to access the feature; annoying but not incapacitating, such ***** a program that occasionally crashes during spell-check, or very serious, such as a ***** that accidentally provides an opp*****tunity for skilled hackers to ***** the user's or comp*****y's computer system. In any case, both ***** individuals and companies pay ***** ***** and expect it to run efficiently ***** ***** stabil*****y. These software problems are called "bugs" after annoying insects that ***** buzz around unpredictably.

A wide variety of s*****tw***** applications with accompanying services exist to help both corporations and software developers deal with the issue of buggy s*****tware. Software developers need an efficient way to track *****, how they can be fixed, and any modifications made to the software to eli*****ate the bugs. Without an efficient and accurate way to track *****se incidents, software developers will have a hard time refining their product, and consumers will learn ***** avoid ***** products.

***** examples of this ***** are QA Radar from Segue Software; PVCS Tracker ***** Intersolv; Track Record from UnderWare;, Track for Windows from Soffront Software; BugBase ***** Archimedes Software; ***** TeamTrack from TeamShare (Feibus, 1998). These are essentially dedicated data bases designed to s*****re, organize and retrieve in*****mation in a variety of formats. Reviewers look*****g at these programs have found ***** some have useful features, such as multiple ways to produce reports. These data***** must be interactive, so that customers can use it easily, and ***** ***** also alert some designated person on the software development team (Feibus, 1998). Some programs are much more flexible than others. For instance, one allows the developer to design the look of the form used for customers to report bugs.

***** parallel type of software useful for *****s performs project development. Such programs can incorporate defect tracking as one of its functions (Gonsalves, 1999). Rational Software Corp. is combining two of ***** products - ClearCase ***** ClearQuest - for this purpose.

The natural extension of this process moves ***** concept ***** defect ***** to the ***** of websites. Michael Flickman, CTO at Concrete Media, Inc., argues that web design is software deveopment (Harding, 2001). He is right. Web design involves ***** commands into a functional unit. ***** describes good web design as a custom-designed client server ***** happens to be accessed by a browser or s*****ved URL. Just be***** it exists on the Internet does not change its inherent nature.

Flickman *****s that he chooses software based on the quality of its defect tracking. If a web designer produces a ***** design with flawed software, those flaws ***** be translated to ***** website. Even if that doesn't happen, his designers need ***** be able to function efficiently and to know that the *****