Dealing With Bugs On Excel | What to do and How to Avoid
You may think that a product like Excel, which is used by millions of people throughout the world, would be relatively free of bugs. Think again. Excel is such a complex piece of software that it is only natural to expect some problems with it. And Excel does have some problems.
Getting a product like Excel out the door isn’t easy, even for a company like Microsoft with seemingly unlimited resources. Releasing a software product involves compromises and trade-offs.
It’s commonly known that most major software vendors release their products with full knowledge that they contain bugs. Most bugs are considered insignificant enough to ignore.
Software companies could postpone their releases by a few months and fix many of them, but software, like everything else, is ruled by economics. The benefits of delaying a product’s release often don’t exceed the costs involved. Although Excel definitely has its share of bugs, my guess is that the majority of Excel users never encounter one.
You’ll surely discover some problems on your own. Some problems occur only with a particular version of Excel — and under a specific configuration involving hardware and/or software. These bugs are the worst ones of all because they aren’t easily reproducible.
And if you are a developer, what will you do if you encounter a bug on Excel? It’s called a workaround. If something that you try to do doesn’t work. And all indications say that it should work. You can submit your bug to Microsoft Office team by following this link.
Next… Well, it’s time to move on to Plan B. Frustrating? Sure. A waste of your time? Absolutely. It’s all part of being a developer.
Well, if you are developing some applications on Excel, how to make your application bug free? As said before, it is only natural to expect some problems with all software products, how ever we can eliminate some through beta testing.
Software manufacturers typically have a rigorous testing cycle for new products. After extensive internal testing, the pre-release product is usually sent to a group of interested users for beta testing. This phase often uncovers additional problems that are usually corrected before the product’s final release.
If you’re developing an Excel application that more than a few people will use, you may want to consider a beta test. This test enables your intended users to use your application in its intended setting on different hardware (usually).
The beta period should begin after you’ve completed all your own testing and you feel that the application is ready to distribute. You’ll need to identify a group of users to help you. The process works best if you distribute everything that will ultimately be included in your application: user documentation, the installation program, help, and so on.
You can evaluate the beta test in a number of ways, including face-to-face discussions, questionnaires, and phone calls.
You almost always become aware of problems that you need to correct or improvements that you need to make before you undertake a widespread distribution of the application. Of course, a beta testing phase takes additional time, and not all projects can afford that luxury.
