Testing reports

[Colin Scott]

You said

> True, but see below.  Sometimes the person who notices the breakage
> is not the person who broke it, or the one who would even know how to 
> fix it.

and 

> eventually get fixed, but I had nothing to do with the breakage.
> Am I expected to fix it only because I noticed it first?

You seem to have missed the point I made when I said

> *Somebody* needs to find out why the report is broken, and until 
> they do nobody will know who broke it (and thus who can fix it!)

I clearly do not expect you to fix other people's errors.  I *do* expect you (and anyone else involved in the project) to do as you did - worked out that something else had stopped your bit of the project functioning, and yelled.  But if you don't test then how will anyone know to yell?

And whilst I admit the reality that not every developer always tests before each check in - and I've been on both ends of that :-(  - it should certainly be the culture that you do so, and that it is a mistake not to do so.  Now, if a coder doesn't test and gets away with it, that's (almost) OK, if not actually ideal.  But if he gets found out the hard way then I would expect him to be on the receiving end of the rest of the team's displeasure!  And the more often it happens, the heavier I would expect the displeasure to become ...

Colin