I’ve developed an automated crash reporting system that sends in realtime (via email) any issues that happens to the end user’s application, I get all the details (e.g. which user, which class/method, etc.)
This is great, and even the crash reporting system has a secondary crash report system for itself (in case it fails) which writes to a log file.
On the plus side, I’m alerted to bugs faster than clients/users can call in; in some cases I’ve resolved bugs before they have even called in.
My problem is when to pass this information back to the client and how much to pass back. On one hand it’s great that it exposes the bugs, but at the same time that’s just the problem! Are we shooting ourself in the foot?
If we tell them we might get a negative response, and if we don’t tell them we might get a negative response!
Please advise!
Fixing bugs before the client notices is a very good thing. And even if you can’t fix a bug that fast, answering your client that you are already aware of it and working on it is good.
And remember that what matters most is to have software that “sucks less at every release”.