COMP311 Assignment 1

Sample Answers

Questions based on Chapter 1 of Software Testing by Ron Patton

Instructions
Work in teams of two. Read the sample chapter handed out. Then discuss and answer the
following questions together.

Marks
This assignment is marked out of 10 and counts for up to 3% of your final mark.

Questions
1. Which phase in a software development process is cause of main cause for most bugs?
(1)
Answer: Specifications or Requirements

2. The sample chapter gives five rules for determining what is considered to be a bug in a
software product. Which of the following is not one of those five? (1)
Hint: the wording is changed to make you think.
Answer: (d) is best. An argument may be made for (b) or (c) so they are also accepted.

a. The product does not perform some functionality required by the specification.

Statement 1 in chapter
b. The product offers functionality beyond what is required by the specification.

Statement 3 or 4 in chapter, but open to interpretation
c. The product functions in a way that is different from what is described in the
specification.

Statement 3 in chapter, but open to interpretation
d. The product specification does not reflect the end-users needs or does not
solve the problem that motivated the development of the product.

not in chapter
e. The product fails to meet non-functional expectations such as performance,
learnability or usability.

Statement 5 in chapter

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3. Which one of the five rules is left out of the list of options for the previous question? (1)
Answer: Statement 2 in chapter: The software does something that the product specification
says it shouldnt do. Also a case may be made for statements 3 and 4.

4. Philip Crosby, one of the pioneers of quality assurance coined the phrase Quality is free.
Clearly applying QA is not literally free because the company must pay salaries of QA
professionals and testers and cover the costs of following QA and test processes.
What did Crosby mean by claiming that quality is free? (2)
Answer: Quality more than pays for itself by saving on costs. The greatest saving is from
detecting and correcting defects early in the software development process.
Any answer that is based on revenue and stating that savings outweigh costs is accepted.

5. In the example of the Y2K bug, do you think that the hypothetical programmer Dave took
the wrong approach in storing years as only two-digits. If your group has divided
opinions, say so. (2)
Hint: Give a brief justification that shows deeper analysis than:
Dave was wrong because two-digit years caused the Y2K bug.
Answer: Any sensible answer is accepted.
Dave followed what was considered best practice at the time by saving storage that was
expensive in 1974. It would be unfair to criticize Dave for not anticipating how much the cost
of storage would fall over time or realizing that his programs might still be running 25 years
later.
On the other hand, Dave should have done something because he was aware of a potential
problem. For example, documenting where 2-byte years were stored would have been very
helpful in 1999.

6. Can you give other example of famous product recalls or notorious software bugs that
you learned about from the news or experienced personally?
Hint: You may search the Web if you give the URL of your main reference below.
Briefly describe the problem and the impact it had on the company that produced the
product and on users. If possible, apply the wisdom of hindsight to suggest how company
could have prevented or reduced the impact of the problem? (3)
Answer: Any real scenario not included in the chapter accepted.

See the next page for a list of the top 10 software bugs of 2012

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Top Ten software bugs of 2012

compiled by the SQS group http://www.sqs.com/en/group/index.php
Software worries can keep IT managers awake at night and now, just to add to their stress levels, SQS
Software Quality Systems has identified the highest profile software failures of 2012.
Software problems within the financial services sector represent five of the top 10 in the 2012 survey.
SQS told ChannelBiz UK that it believes one of the major causes of failure here is because legacy systems
in banks and trading firms are coming to the end of their life and are not being updated or replaced due
to financial constraints. Each of these 2012 software failures could easily have been avoided through an
effective quality management strategy identifying and resolving potential glitches before they appear.
Top 10 countdown
10 Leap Year bugs hit banking and healthcare payment systems. A leading multinational corporations
cloud computing service outage, which affected Governments and consumers, was caused by the
additional day in February this year. The same leap year date bug also affected an Australian payment
system used by the health industry, resulting in 150,000 customers being prevented from using private
health care cards for medical transactions for two days.
9 Utility billing nightmare. An Australian energy company sent thousands of customers late payment
charges for bills they didnt receive due to a computer glitch, while a Germany utility company
overcharged 94,000 of its customers due to a computer glitch that incorrectly charged exit fees, costing
the energy supplier $2.24 million (1.4m) in settlement payouts.
8 Gambler loses winnings to computer virus. A gambler, who was under the impression he had won
just over $1 million (620,000), was told by a High Court that, despite his anticipated windfall showing in
the online game he had played, he was not a millionaire after all. A software error mistakenly reported
his winnings as much higher than they actually were and, due to this contingency being covered in the
games terms and conditions, he could not legally claim his anticipated prize.
7 Teething problems for new revenue service software system. After upgrading its software and
revenue service system, at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion (806m) through 2024, to promote e-filing
of tax returns, the US revenue service saw delays in handling electronic tax returns, with 85 percent of
refunds delayed by over 23 days.
6 Security staff shortage at major international sports event. An internal computer systems problem
resulted in miscalculation of the number of security staff required to support an international sports
event this summer. This Olympian internal staffing miscalculation resulted in members of the armed
forces being drafted in to act as security staff.

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5 US elections vote glitch. Computer problems drew complaints across the US during the 2012
elections, with numerous problems with voting machine glitches reported by voters. An example was
touchscreen errors automatically changing the vote from one candidate to another and not allowing
voters to reselect or correct the error.
4 Social networking giant IPO trading glitch. Technology problems affected trading in millions of
shares of a popular social media website, after software glitches caused a malfunction in the trading
systems design for processing orders and cancellations, meaning orders were processed incorrectly, if
at all. Trades in as many as 30 million shares were affected by the glitch.
3 IPO withdrawn because of technical failure. A stock trading business launching its initial public
offering on its own trading system was forced to withdraw its IPO after an embarrassing computer glitch
caused a serious technical failure on its own exchange. A system problem occurred as soon as the
exchange tried to open the ticker symbol of the stock, failing to roll into a continuous trading pattern as
it was supposed to, halting the trading on the stock before it had even started trading.
2 Software glitch costs trading firm $440million (273m) in 45 minutes. According to SQS, a trading
firms newly-installed software resulted in a $440 million loss after it rapidly bought and sold large
volumes of over a hundred different stocks in 45 minutes using a flawed software algorithm that bought
the shares at market price then sold at the bid price instantly losing a few cents on each trade. The
rapid trades pushed the price of the stocks up, resulting in spectacular losses for the trading firm when it
had to sell the overvalued stocks back into the market at a lower price.
1 Airline glitch strands passengers. For the third time in 2012, a computer glitch wreaked havoc on
thousands of travellers with a US airline, delaying flights for hours. A glitch in the dispatch system
software resulted in hundreds of delayed flights across the US and internationally. The two hour outage
held up 636 of the 5,679 scheduled flights and resulted in 10 flights being cancelled altogether.

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