On Defect Taxonomies

Presents considerations for designing defect taxonomies and our draft taxonomy.


Definition "Defect Taxonomy"

A defect is a structural property of a software document of any kind (e.g. requirements description, test plan, source code, configuration file), namely a deviation from the nearest (i.e. most similar) correct document that makes the document incorrect or locally incorrect.

A taxonomy is a system of hierarchical categories designed to be a useful aid for reproducibly classifying things.

Purpose of a defect taxonomy

The following considerations assume that defects are recorded when they are found throughout the software process, including their classification according to the defect taxonomy. Then a defect taxonomy can serve one or several of the following purposes:

Aspects that can be used in forming the taxonomy

Any two taxonomy entries will differ with respect to one or several of the following defect aspects:

Design considerations

The cross-product of all of the above aspects would not lead to a useful taxonomy. The reasons are as follows:

Rather, we use the following approach and priorities for constructing the taxonomies:

((to be completed))

Defect taxonomy (draft)

((actual taxonomy is still to be begun))

References

Lots of defect taxonomies and ways how to build and utilize them have been suggested. Here's a short list of some interesting work:

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