RE: Restrict ability to alter variables in debugger on production

["Jamie Coles" <jcoles@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe - 

A bug may appear due to lack of thorough testing of an application - not
because production data wasn't used.

I'm not wearing my "salesman" hat here - so please bear with me.

So often - mainly due to time restraints - testing is restricted to just
the immediate area of the application that has been changed, and the
impact on the rest of the application is not always followed through
either due to time, or because we simply don't know all the intricacies
of the code.

I sell functional testing software - so whether the test is carried out
with live data or an extracted subset of live data that has the field
contents scrambled should make no difference.  I can't immediately see
where a bug would appear ONLY if live data were used, but would be
willing to learn.

I can see possibilities of errors being found in load or stress testing
scenarios - but again I can't see the need to use live data as opposed
to a scrambled copy of the complete real database.

I have known examples of when live data is used by testers and invoices
or other personal documentation produced and printed out.   
 
Sorry for the long post -  but I am willing to listen and learn.

Jamie 

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: 11 November 2004 17:15
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Restrict ability to alter variables in debugger on
production

> From: Jamie Coles
> 
> In some industries the use of live data - or copies of live data - is
> theoretically not following the data protection legislation.

One would hope that the auditors have enough common sense to realize
that sometimes a bug only appears under specific data circumstances, and
that a bug in production may not be able to be reproduced in test
without the actual data.

There needs to be some way to provide temporary access to a copy of
production data in order to determine the existence of a bug without
impinging on security.

Joe

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