Software Engineering Tidbits

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Bug Report

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Bug Report

Georges El Khoury
Mar 22, 2023
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If you have followed this newsletter for a while, you would notice I usually recommend software engineers pursue a Jerry Maguire “Help me Help you” approach in their day to day work.

First if you did not watch the movie, it’s highly recommended. Please do :) Here is the “Help me Help you” scene.

In the code review post, I recommended to help the reviewer help you (the author) by making it easy for them to approve the pull request.

Software Engineering Tidbits
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One thing you will spend the most time doing in your software engineering career is code reviews. Unfortunately, it is not something software engineers learn in schools or are specifically mentored about. Below is a detailed guide on how to conduct a code review from both the perspective of the author and the reviewer…
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a year ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Georges El Khoury

Today, we will cover a bug report in a way that will help the engineer help you (the person who submitted the bug report) by making it easy for them to quickly find the root cause and fix the bug.

This is the outline I recommend.

Clear and concise title

Priority: How quickly should we tackle this bug? Usually a range between 1-5.

Severity (optional): What is the impact of this bug? Usually a range between 1-5

Repro Steps: Describe every single step needed to repro the bug.

Expected Result: What was expected to happen? What is the expected behavior?

Actual Result: What is actually happening

More details: Add as much details and context (user, environment, version, platform, time, repro once or every time, repros consistently or not, etc…) as possible. Add any screenshot that will be useful. Finally, attach any logs, network requests/responses and instrumentation that will be useful for the engineer while debugging.

I have seen people record their screen and comment which is really helpful for the engineering team. Loom is great if you want to do this (not an ad)


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