Identifying the Common Causes of Software Defects

Insightfully mapping out the technological advancements in software development from its beginnings somewhere in the late 1940’s to the current modern age. There is more than enough compelling evidence that software technology has laid a strong impact on all economic and social aspects of our modern day living. Thus, a systematic approach towards high quality software development is required due to an increasingly quality oriented market and competitive business world.
With this intricate dependency on software it has become imperative for software engineers and companies alike to deploy high quality software products. This therefore entails producing software products that are defect-free. A defect can be identified as any imperfection, unsatisfactory condition or an undesired behavior observed by both the management of software industry and their customers. Hence, one of the vital activities of software engineers is to manage defects as they are injected in software during development and rooting out the causes of these defect injections.
This document therefore attempts to identify the common causes of software defects with reference to the two main approaches for defect management namely defect detection and defect prevention. The defect detection approach identifies root causes of defects and defect prevention activities avoid the recurrence of defects. By identifying these causes and defects one can implicitly make further recommendations as to which defect management approach is most effective as to mitigating or reducing the occurrence of these defects.
Overview of research paradigm
On this investigative journey of identifying the “common” causes of defects we are to assume that the injections of certain defects are pre...

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...olume 8– No.7, October
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