Consequences of Bugs
The consequences of a bug can be measured in terms of human, rather than machine, Some consequences of a bug on a scale of one to ten are:
1. Mild: The symptoms of the bug offend us gently; a misspelled output or a misaligned printout
2. Moderate: Outputs are misleading or redundant. The bug impacts the systems performance
3. Annoying: The Systems behaviour, because of the bug is dehumanizing
Example: Names are truncated or arbitrarily modified
4. Disturbing: It refuses to handle legitimate (authorized/legal) transactions.
Example: The ATM wont give money. Credit card is declared invalid
5. Serious: It loses track of its transaction. Not just the transaction itself but the fact that the transaction occurred and accountability is lost
6. Very Serious: The bug causes the system to do the wrong transactions. Instead of gaining a pay check, the system credits it to another account or converts deposits to withdrawals
7. Extreme: The problems are not limited to a few users or to few transaction types. They are frequent and arbitrary, ( instead of occasionally infrequent) or for unusual case
8. Intolerable: Long term unrecoverable corruption of the database occurs and the corruption is not easily discovered. Serious consideration is given to shutting the system down
9. Catastrophic: The decision to shut down is taken out of our hands because the system fails
10. Infectious: What can be worse than a failed system? One that corrupts other systems even though it does not fail in itself; that erodes the social physical environment; that melts reactors and starts a war
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