Happy Holidays everyone. I hope the new year brings everyone more work and less stress.

Now that I am back from my vacation I will resume my posts on the Defect Tracking Patterns language. We've come a bit over halfway, and I've gotten some good feedback. Thanks to everyone who has commented!

Fixed is not Closed

A simple but often overlooked distinction in tracking bugs in software. After the code to fix a bug is checked in, it still isn't really done until it is verified. In the context of the development team receiving feedback from the customer, programmers who work on bugs need feedback to know if the changes fixed the bug as reported. Those changes need to be verified by a third-party and the work on the bug brought to resolution.

Therefore A fixed bug is not a closed bug. Once the programmer has made code changes and checked in the results, that programmer can mark the bug fixed, but cannot close it. The customer who entered the bug is responsible for verifying and closing the bug if it really is fixed. The resolution of a bug should be different from the status. "Will not fix" or "Unable to reproduce" are among the other resolutions besides fixed that can close a bug. The dispatcher should be especially alert to resolutions other than "fixed", there may be additional information that can change this.

The customer who submitted the bug should close it, or, if there is an dispatcher role, that can be where fixed and closing are coordinated.

The previous pattern, A Bug's Life Cycle, is closely related to this pattern.