Article Discussion
Small Bugs with Big Implications
Summary: Small bugs can sometimes lead to significant failures, especially when those bugs manifest themselves in production code. In this interview with Artima, Mark Thomas, Director of Java Technologies at IBM, talks about the potentially big implications of defects that are discovered only in a production environment, and what developers can do to discover and mitigate such problems.
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Most recent reply: August 10, 2007 0:37 PM by Isaac
    Frank
     
    Posts: 135 / Nickname: fsommers / Registered: January 19, 2002 7:24 AM
    Small Bugs with Big Implications
    August 10, 2007 7:10 AM      
    In this interview with Artima, Mark Thomas, Director of Java Technologies at IBM, talks about the potentially big implications of defects that are discovered only in a production environment, and what developers can do to discover and mitigate such problems.

    http://www.artima.com/lejava/articles/javaone_2007_mark_thomas.html

    What techniques have worked for you for finding bugs in code already in production?
    • acton
       
      Posts: 1 / Nickname: actonwang / Registered: March 28, 2006 6:38 AM
      Re: Small Bugs with Big Implications
      August 10, 2007 11:20 AM      
      For enterprise application running in production environment, precautiously add a tracing/debugging component which be easily turned on/off.

      More important, program in a most conservative way. Always assume the worst can come. Although it will take you sometime to think during the development phase, it can lessen a lot of headache later.


      Not sure there is some proven practices/components in Java. like to hear ...
    • Isaac
       
      Posts: 51 / Nickname: igouy / Registered: July 10, 2003 7:42 AM
      Re: Small Bugs with Big Implications
      August 10, 2007 0:37 PM      
      Mark Thomas spake "Once you're in production, nobody is going to let you run a debugger in that production environment. So it comes down to: How can you make it easy to find the root causes of those problems?"

      Unless it's a Smalltalk system.

      Unless it's a Lisp system - "I used Lisp for decades, but could I have connected to a REPL on an unmanned spacecraft running a large, complex Lisp app and debugged it in situ? I'd like to think so, but honestly, I have my doubts. But my CTO did that."
      http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2353#comment-35288