While creating software, you can encounter mistakes, runtime errors, and various other flaws. These errors are known as a software bugs. A software bug may result in malfunctioning of the software. This can cause a huge losses in terms of money and life. In this article, we will discuss what are bugs in a software and how we can reduce them in our software projects.

Different Types Of Bugs In A Software

You can classify bugs in software by their nature, their severity and their priority based on the situation. By nature, the bugs in a software can be classified into three categories.

• Functional defects: When software doesn’t give the desired outcome it is called a functional defect. For instance, Suppose you want to purchase a book. Let’s say, the software has a functionality that you can search the book both by the name as well as its author’s name. But if it shows the book in search results only when you search its name and not when you search the author’s name, it means that the software has a functional defect. 
• Performance defects: When software doesn’t give the desired performance in terms of speed, responsiveness, and consumption of resources, it is called a performance defect. For instance,  If you are working on a software and it takes to much time for a simple task, the software is said to be having performance defects.
• Compatibility defect: When software hinders work in various machines then it results in a Compatibility defect. Consider an example: Suppose you work on Windows operating system and your friend works on a Linux machine. You might be able to work on that software perfectly. But, your friend might face issues due to a different operating system. This is called compatibility defect.  

You can also classify bugs based on severity and priority. When software is not able to do a minute noticeable work it is due to the bug being severe. More severe bugs can lead to larger losses. So, they should be removed at first. Those bugs that need to be fixed sooner can be categorized as high priority bugs whereas minor bugs can be classified as low priority bugs.

Tips For Reducing Bugs

It is a fact that software bugs come from messy code. It is practically impossible for you to eradicate bugs completely, but you can take proper measures to reduce them to a great extent. Hence, you need to learn to code and write simple and clean code to avoid confusion and complexity. Since quality begins with the way you code, you may head up to learn python, C++, JAVA, etc. which are good programming languages to start with in order to master any tech stack and write neat and clean code in order to reduce bugs to a great extent. 

Here are some of the tips for reducing bugs in software projects:

• Always keep your code simple and significant. There is no denying the fact that complex codes may end up making your software buggy.  Your code should be readable and understandable. By doing this, it becomes far easier to debug in case of any issue.
• You must think before you code. Think of all possible test cases, the ones which will fail and the ones which will pass. By doing this you are on a better road where bugs are rare down the future.
• Always try to break your code into chunks. For instance, a function for every task that needs to be done. By doing this your vision can be narrowed to an extent where you will only be targeting the function which is causing the bug rather than looking at the entire code.
• Use proper comments that will provide better readability and can be useful to eradicate bugs. For instance,suppose that you have a function that does some task. You need to use comments in a proper manner. When anyone else comes across that part of the code while maintenance, they may get the idea of what the function actually does using the comments.
• You should never ignore the warnings while compiling software projects. Always acknowledge them and try to remove the warnings. No matter if the code works, these warnings can in some way lead to an error in the future.
• It is a good idea to test the code regularly as it will tell you where you might fail. It will even give you a gist of other test cases. Also, by doing this you may get the knowledge of various bugs beforehand, and you may eradicate them instantly.
• It is truly said, “Think twice, Code Once!”. You must always take your time to first think and then to implement. Doing tasks in a rush will not fetch you anything good. By taking time and thinking about various pros and cons, you can escape the deadly situations where you may end up wasting your time in larger mistakes and debugging the code.
• You must adhere to various coding standards. It will help you a lot. Writing code while adhering to standards will provide better readability, re-usability, easy detection for the bugs, efficient execution. For instance, You should give proper names to functions and variables rather than throwing random names.The names should convey information about the function or the variable. This will save your time while debugging as you will have a clear idea of what to change rather than looking for what the variable is, where it is declared, which function is it a part of, and other issues.
• If there are existing libraries that will make your task easier, it is always a great idea to go with them. This will save a lot of time. You can avoid implementing those functionalities and making the code complex that may result in various bugs.
• Always review your code at every stage of development while taking various use cases. This will reduce the possibility of bugs in a wide way and lead to the efficient development of your software project. 

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed various tips for reducing bugs in software projects. If you implement the above practices in every phase of your project it will be fruitful as it will result in fewer or almost no bugs in your project. Just keep in mind that only simplicity can help you achieve a complex task.

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