Now, here is more about testing untestable systems.
Please read “He Who Can Not Be Tested” and “He Who Will Be Tested!” before you continue, if you want to be in the mood.
I found an article about this subject, which is called “Testing the Untestable: Reliability in the 21st Century“.
Sep 15
Hi Again!
My past post on ‘apparently untestable systems‘ turned out to be a very cool experience. I talked with a lot of friends about it, and also had a very informative thread running on the comp.software.testing usenet group. The discussion was called “Is every single program testable? How do you deal with ‘untestable’ software?”
That thread was so helpful to further my understanding of testing, that I’ll put here a summary. It surely will make a good reference for me on the future, and I hope this will be useful for others too.
So, in order to continue and understand, read the ‘He Who Can Not Be Tested‘ post. All the discussion started from the questions in there:
– Do you think there are types of software which cannot be tested to a satisfactory degree?
– So how would you test software like this (of Dr. Parnas)? Or would you, as was his approach, just refuse to write and test it?
I’ll condense the responses here, and will add a note (and maybe a link) about each person. Note: The responses are edited and rearranged from the original replies, not really verbatim (although I changed the wording very little). Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 18
Well… No, you won’t get this prize either.
Read the previous BotT (about a bug in the lottery software) in order to be in the mood for this one.
This BotT tells a story. A story about a car dealership that had the great idea of mailing thousands of scratch-off games to promote their business. What they did not know is that, by mistake, all of the 50000 cards had a winning notice behind the scratch-off layer. Instead of having to pay a US$1.000 prize, they soon discovered that they had to pay US$50.000.000!!
Go to this link to read the story, or at least to see the videos of the angry customers that came to demand their US$1.000: Koat News link.
I am not pointing a finger at any culprit, it is clear that it was a big confusion. And although it is an interesting story, the point that I want to emphasize is: How do you test a system that can not be executed?
Aug 15
Welcome!
If you are an avid reader, and read the first post of this blog, you know that this blog is was password protected.
Since last week, the page is accessible to all, and may be read by everyone. As of now, no other page on the net links to Testing Thoughts, so it will be a calm place for a while. Read the rest of this entry »
Annotations from day 11/0702007 of the Sigist conference on Software Testing. Read the rest of this entry »
Annotations from day 10/0702007 of the Sigist conference on Software Testing. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1979 (yes, I am that young 😉), Glenford J. Myers
Called “The Art of Software Testing
Well, it turns out the principles of software – from writing it to testing it – are still pretty much the same. Software is still written on sort of punchcards, the punchcards just got more complex and flexible… The book content is surprisingly relevant for today’s testers – so much, that it was updated only once in almost 30 years.
If you haven’t, read the book. Unfortunately, I have read it only partially meanwhile.
Maybe the most known contribution of Mr. Glenford in this book is the testing self-assessment challenge in the introduction.