The very successful approach that I have participated in in the past with a
different company was a regression suite that ran against a simulator rig,
for which we constantly built vectors of parameters specifically intended to
exercise the problems that caused us to have to issue each bug fix. Every
time we found a bug, a required part of the bug fix was generating a
regression vector that properly expressed the error without the fix and was
error-free with the fix.

Every new build had to run (several days of continuous running) against the
full regression suite. It wasn't fool-proof but it repeatedly saved us from
reintroducing bugs that we had fixed in the past.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Sander [mailto:ssande AT SANDIA DOT GOV] 
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 10:38 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: Bug regressions?

Stuart Whitby wrote:
> The "regression" you're seeing here isn't necessarily a regression as 
> such.  Each jumbo patch goes through a release process which includes 
> testing, and that testing time is based on a cut from the code tree at a 
> fixed point in time.  7.3.1, for example, doesn't contain all the fixes 
> available on the evening before its release.  It contains the fixes 
> available at the time the release was cut; probably 2-3 weeks previously.
>  
>  
> In short, you should probably be *glad* that not all of the fixes are 
> there.  If they were, you'd have a release with no testing against it.  
> And you've seen what 7.3 was like *with* testing..... 8O
>  
> Cheers,
>  
> Stuart.
> 

Well, yes I understand what you are saying and it would seem reasonable 
to expect that fixes from the past few weeks aren't in the next release. 
  But, what I seem to have noticed is that fixes from *months* prior 
don't make it into releases either.  I guess that's what got me worked up.


-- 
Stan Sander - CSU Special Projects  (505)284-4915
ASAP, LLC, Contractor assigned to Sandia National Laboratories
Unix Systems Administrator

Microsoft: You've got questions. We've got a dancing paperclip.

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