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“Why wasn't this bug caught in the first place” - this isn’t an attack on whichever developer introduced the bug. It’s a (totally fair) attack on Signal’s lack
by cj 6y ago
“Why wasn't this bug caught in the first place” - this isn’t an attack on whichever developer introduced the bug.
It’s a (totally fair) attack on Signal’s lack of QA/testing in their development + release cycle.
Do they implement peer reviews on PR? Multiple reviews on changes touching mission critical code (ie. data migrations)? Do their test suites provide adequate test coverage? Do they have a manual Q/A process that involves real people testing new releases?
Considering Signal’s funding, I would hope the answer to all of those questions is yes.
But if it’s possible to release code that completely corrupts the app with no known fix, I suspect their test coverage and Q/A processes aren’t as robust as they need to be.
- dj_mc_merlin 6y agoMaybe all of those things. Given this issue isn't widespread AFAIS, it could have went through a bunch of tests and QA people, none of which caught the unique combination of factors that might be rare but not rare enough to not cause problems on a lot of devices regardless. They should totally improve their testing methodology after such a bug, but I can see how a perfectly competent dev team could let such a bug slip. I haven't followed Signal's track record though, so I couldn't say if this is a one-off or a pattern.
- lordlimecat 6y agoYou're cutting a Dev team an awful lot of slack for a data loss bug. Microsoft got rightfully roasted for last years data loss release. This is arguably the most serious class of bug, and the most preventable.