Speed of fixing bugs holds back software deployment

Developers want to deploy software releases faster, but the time taken to fix bugs is holding them back according to new research.

A survey for cloud testing platform Sauce Labs carried out by Dimensional Research reveals that 28 percent of those surveyed say they want to deploy hourly (up from 18 percent in 2016). Last year only eight percent said they were not deploying as fast as they wanted to, but that percentage has nearly doubled to 14 percent this year.

However, the survey also reveals the ability to fix bugs once they've been identified is holding things back. No progress was made at all in the number of development teams that can fix bugs immediately once they are identified, which stayed flat at 23 percent in both 2016 and 2017. Only minor progress (51 percent, up from 48 percent last year) was made in those who fix bugs within a few working days.

"Faced with increased market pressure to compete in today's digital economy -- where every business is a software business -- it's no surprise that more development teams want to release software faster," says Charles Ramsey, CEO of Sauce Labs. "What is surprising from this report is the revelation that the speed in fixing identified bugs has remained stagnant. There is huge opportunity for teams to leverage automated testing to identify bugs earlier in the release cycle, immediately evaluate the bug with video playback and other assets, and share those test results across teams to fix them as quickly as possible."

Automated testing is becoming more widespread, 87 percent use test automation tools, although 42 percent are still mostly or entirely carrying out tests manually. The number using mostly or entirely automated testing is 32 percent, up from 26 percent in 2016. Although 74 percent fix bugs within a few working days, this is up only three percentage points over 2016.

There's a decrease in cross browser testing too, 49 percent now say they test on only the most recent browser version, up from 27 percent in 2016. The shift towards DevOps and agile continues too, but although these are widely adopted in some form (73 percent for DevOps, 89 percent for agile) fewer companies have fully embraced them (10 percent and 32 percent).

More detail can be found in the full report on the Sauce Labs website.

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