How Code Fails in the Real World

No software survives contact with its users - no matter how well it's tested during development, users will find strange behaviours and bugs. They may complain to you or even publicly about them, while struggling to give consistent information to track down the underlying causes.

In this talk, we'll use the example of adding direct crash- and error- reporting to a large desktop application, and the lessons learned as a result: around cross-platform portability, user behaviour, driver bugs and of course straightforward coding issues. The lessons contained apply to any software that's deployed widely, whether it be on end-user machines, embedded devices or in the data-center.

We'll cover the development workflow changes needed to include reporting and symbol information during automated builds, and other potential code changes to collect better feedback; briefly consider the privacy implications around automated reporting, and look at how aggregate analysis over the entire user-base can drive decision making about releases and bug-fixes.

James Turner

James is a C++ consultant, developer and teacher, working professionally to help diverse customers with building, maintaining and improving their codebases, especially in the areas of graphics and simulation.

He's also a lead maintainer on FlightGear, an open-source flight-simulator, with a strong interest in software quality, both around code itself (such as automated testing and code analysis) and in user-facing experiences.