Anatomy Of A Bug In Microsoft Office

bender writes "An insightful look at what it is like to track down and fix a bug in Microsoft Office is available from Microsoft's Blog site."

But...

[Joey Patterson]

I can already fix MS Office bugs by myself! [openoffice.org]

Bug Triage

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Does it affect Clippy? Fix immediately!
2. Does it affect features? Fix this week.
3. Does it affect security? Fix when you get around to it.

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A as in "one"?

[StevenHenderson]

what it is like to track down and fix a bug

Track a bug? Sounds like trying to follow a single mosquito in the ranforest. :)

The steps

[samhart]

Step 1: Deny existence of bug.
Step 2: Classify bug as feature.
Step 3: Cave to user demand and try to fix bug.
Step 4: Introduce new bugs during the fix.
Step 5: Classify those bugs as features.
Step 6: Pretend bugs are fixed and continue playing Minesweeper.

Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[krog]

Here, drive this Yugo instead.

As long as Clippy exists...

[Shadow Wrought]

the most annoying bug in Office will still be with us.

Amazing innovation...

[kidventus]

"Brodie figured out that a document is really just a collection of pieces of text"
Brilliant
Hey guys, here's a hint: The internet is just a collection of data packets.. now fix the bugs in Internet Explorer please.

The article summarized:

[revery]

Humans are bugs, err, humans are viruses. Correction: Humans have bugs.

Programs are like onions. Ogres are like onions. Donkeys like cake.

Mac Office X is the red-headed step child of Microsoft development efforts

Microsoft is a lot like the police.

--

Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.

Loved it...

[PsiPsiStar]

I wonder if they'll do another writeup when they fix the next bug.

Re:The steps

[Anonymous Coward]

7. PROFIT!

Ah Hah!

[loyalsonofrutgers]

I figured out the missing step: Marketing!

How *I* fix bugs in enterprise software...

[Herbmaster]

1. Get assigned bug to fix; get distracted and read slashdot instead.
2. ???
3. Bug is fixed; I profit.

Hmm....

Why was that flagged "troll"?

[khasim]

gl4ss is completely correct.

Win95 was THE MOST ADVANCED OS in the world!

Win98 fixed all the bugs in Win95.

Win98SE fixed all the bugs in Win98.

Windows2000 is crash proof and the Unix killer!

Windows XP is even more stable than Win2K and will be sure to slay *nix.

Go digging through the press releases and gushing "journalists" for every single release (except WinME) since (and including) Win95. You'll see the same quotes over and over and over.

A bug at MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

27-08-2004 08:14

Several bugs have been sighted near the southern perimeter and some of our QA staff have been wounded in a couple of minor skirmishes. Strategic Command said the enemy's main move will not come for weeks and certainly not in this sector, though I am beginning to doubt.

27-08-2004 08:26

The skirmishes have intensified and several QA squads are trapped between an unknown number of bugs. We even had a few lightning strikes beyond our perimeter, which took out our BugTraq listening post. I tried to call in for assistence from StratCom, because I suspect the main strike is happening here as we speak. 27-08-2004 08:54

The minor skirmishes have ceased along all sectors. We are trying to evacuate the wounded and salvage what's left of some of our equipment. 3rd QA batallion took heavy losses, as did 6th QA and 8th Helpdesk. What is this, some cat and mouse game they are playing with us?

27-08-2004 09:06

All hell broke loose! While we were trying to evacuate the wounded, we found our sector under attack from multiple vectors, including artillery and naval support. Whatever remained of 3rd and 6th QA that was stationed in the rear has now been wiped out. 8th Helpdesk has been decimated and I had no other option to commit 24th, 12th and 2nd Developer batallion to the battle, at least untill reinforcements arrive. The enemy seems to be using a superior number of SFU-506 "Sasser" class fighters with ActiveX payloads. I nearly begged StratCom to send some "KB900364" SAM batteries.

27-08-2004 15:56

We have pulled back and regrouped in Sector 56. 3rd, 4th, 6th QA got decimated. 8th, 12th and 15th Helpdesk have been routed as well. 24th, 12th and 2nd Developer have been utterly destroyed to save the rest from annihilation. The few who remain are now en-route back home. Some are shell-shocked, one fat guy keeps jumping around yelling "Developers!"... Poor sod, this is war at it's worst.

Bugs cause Office bug...

[autophile]

It's not uncommon for users to make a few edits to a document, save the document, make a few more edits, save the document again, make a few more changes, and continue this process of edit/save for hours on end.

Gee, I wonder why.

--Rob

Obviously not fully debugged

[spaceyhackerlady]

Rather, we're talking about the shear volume of things the user can do.

Memo to Microsoft: it may be spelled correctly, but that doesn't guarantee it's the right word.

...laura

Re:Debugged humans eh?

[peragrin]

>>Not to mention, they actually have a nice R&D shop now, not just the pretense of one anymore.

Ah so they finally upgraded the Reverse engineering dept. It's about time.

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS office is a Farrari? /me weeps openly

They are both Yugos my frend.. except microsoft's costs 10x as much and has chrome tailfins.

Re:Why was that flagged "troll"?

[lspd]

Win95 was THE MOST ADVANCED OS in the world!

Win98 fixed all the bugs in Win95.

Win98SE fixed all the bugs in Win98.

WinME: The bugs strike back.

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[bhtooefr]

MS Office is the Indy car in Stunts. Try to get it to do something it wasn't SUPPOSED to do, and it screws up. The Lamborghini LM-003 (IIRC) doesn't get anywhere fast (let's face it - OOo is SLOW...), but gets there.

Re:But...

[TedCheshireAcad]

It's funny, the machine I type on at work was recently rebuilt, and Word re-installed. However, my user account doesn't have read permission to the share that Office was installed from. Every time I start up an Office component, I see:

Windows Installer progress bar -> Access Denied -> Application

And the app starts up fine. Real good design, kids.

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never knew word processors made people so angry and violent. I'm glad I don't have to use one.

Re:Ah Hah!

[evilmousse]

so 'marketing' >IS just a euphamism for a distributed lying system..

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[micromoog]

That was a beautiful analogy. The world needs more obscure references to 80s DOS games.

Re:But...

[1010011010]

I don't do it, but people in the office do. Or try, anyway. And then I get to support them, technically speaking. :)

Re:The key problem is expressed in very few words

[TedCheshireAcad]

You must be the n00b on the team. I hear the other guys who work on AIX just ask SCO where the bugs are.

Now I understand why I hate MS

[Bitmanhome]

To put this into perspective, the person who implemented multiple undo in Word is one of the best developers who has ever worked on Word, and has, since, been recognized as a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer.

So .. the guy that added multiple undo knowingly created a file handle leak .. and got an award for it? And he's the *best* engineer they got? Yeah, that sounds like Microsoft to me.

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[tupshin]

No...that's 50/50 split between the groupthinksthis and the groupthinksthat.

Question......

[vwjeff]

Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

Here, drive this Yugo instead.

Which one is the Ferrari and which one is the Yugo? Don't think about this question for more than two seconds otherwise your head will explode!!

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[jsebrech]

of course, you got modded up by the "I'm cool because I don't follow Slashdot groupthink" people, who, amusingly, have their own groupthink... so there you go... I'll probably be modded down by the same people.

No, you made a reasonably insightful comment, appended it with a suggestion that anti-groupthink is involved, and then made the prediction you would get modded down for offending the groupthinkers. That's an automatic +5. Ah, groupthink moderation at work :)

Now, before anyone mods this up as insightful or funny, start thinking, are you following the group? Are you really being an individual? What is the independent course of action here? Up, down or no moderation? Ah, sweet sweet moderation conflict.

Hint: if you have to think about whether you're acting like an individual, you're not being one. Only a person who truly is aloof of all social worries is a complete freethinker. Which is why they're all weirdo assholes.

And now you can give me that off-topic moderation, thank you.

Nice MS R&D Dept? You Bet!

[Anonymous Coward]

MS has the bet R&D dept in the world, and it's called Apple Computer. Take 280 South from SFO, get off at the De Anza exit in Cupertino. Right there. Can't miss it.

Re:Oh, your Ferrari has a broken cupholder?

[flabbergasted]

(LyX is decent, too, but I like raw LaTeX in emacs myself).

Emacs?! Pah! Real men just wrap a coil of wire around a nail and put the bits on disk themselves!

Re:Sorry about the bad formatting

[Tim Browse]

How about getting back on topic?

You're a jerk 99.999% of the time.

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