In response to yesterday’s post on The Happy Path colleague and friend Albert Gareev raises an important issue: Until we sufficiently learned about the users, the product, and the environment, we have no idea what usage pattern is a “happy path” and what would be the “edge cases”. I agree with Albert. (See more of what he has to say here.) This points to a kind of paradox in testing … Read more
“Happy path testing” isn’t really testing at all. Following the “happy path” is a demonstration. Here’s the role demonstration plays in testing: it’s nice to know that your product can achieve the happy path before you start to test it. To the degree a demonstration is a test, it’s a very shallow test. If you’re building something new and non-trivial that matters to people, or that could harm people, there’s … Read more
Last week on Twitter, I posted this: “The testing is going well.” Does this mean the product is in good shape, or that we’re obtaining good coverage, or finding lots of bugs? “The testing is going badly.” The product is in good shape? Testing is blocked? We’re noting lots of bugs erroneously? — Michael Bolton (@michaelbolton) January 31, 2018 “The testing is going well.” Does this mean the product is … Read more
To a naïve manager who doesn’t understand testing very well, the visible manifestation of testing is a tester, sitting in front of a computer, banging on keys to operate a product, comparing output with a predicted result, and marking “pass” or “fail” on a spreadsheet. Therefore, thinks the manager: one way to make testing dramatically more efficient and effective is to automate the testing. Substitute the human tester for a … Read more