Over the last few years, people have become increasingly enthusiastic about the idea of mind mapping to help them describe or illustrate or otherwise consider test coverage. For me, Darren McMillan was the one who really got the ball rolling here, here, and here. More recently there have been other examples to present coverage ideas. Colleague Adam Goucher has weighed in here. But there’s another thing you can do, something … Read more
In which the conversation about heuristics and oracles continues… “So what’s the difference,” I asked my tester friend Tony, “between an oracle and a heuristic?” “Hmm. Well, I’ve read the Rapid Testing stuff, and you and James keep saying an oracle is a principle or mechanism by which we recognize a problem.“ “Yes,” I said. “That’s what we call an oracle. What’s the difference between that and a heuristic?” “An … Read more
In the last post in this series, I noted some potentially useful structual similarities between bug reports (whether oral or written) and newspaper reports. This time, I’ll delve into that a little more. To our clients, investigative problem reports are usually the most important part of the product story. The most respected newspapers don’t earn their reputations by reprinting press releases; they earn their reputations through investigative journalism. As testers … Read more
We were in the middle of a testing exercise at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference in 2005. I was assisting James Bach in a workshop that he was leading on testing. He presented the group with a mysterious application written by James Lyndsay—an early version of one of the Black Box Test Machines. “How many test cases would you need to test this application?” he asked. Just then Jerry Weinberg … Read more
Calculating a ratio of passing tests to failing tests is a relatively easy task. If it is used as a means of estimating the state of a development project, though, the ratio is invalid, irrelevant, and misleading. At best, if everyone ignores it entirely, it’s simply playing with numbers. Otherwise, producing a pass/fail ratio is irresponsible, unethical, and unprofessional. A passing test is no guarantee that the product is working … Read more
A fellow named Oren Reshef writes in response to my post on Worthwhile Documentation. Let me be the devil’s advocate for a post. Not having fully detailed test steps may lead to insufficient data in bug reports. Yup, that could be a risk (although having fully detailed steps in a test script might also lead to insufficient data in bug reports; and insufficient to whom, exactly?). So what do you … Read more
In my recent blog post, Testing Problems Are Test Results, I noted a question that we might ask about people’s perceptions of testing itself: Does someone perceive testing to be difficult or time-consuming? Who? What’s the basis for that perception? What assumptions underlie it? The answer to that question may provide important clues to the way people think about testing, which in turn influences the cost and value of testing. … Read more
In the last post, my LinkedIn correspondent provided a couple of reasons why she liked writing test cases, and why she thought it necessary to write them down in the early stages of the project. Then she gave a third reason: When I’m on a project and I am the only one who knows how to test something, then I can’t move on to something new. I’d still be testing … Read more
Over the years, LinkedIn seems to have replaced comp.software.testing as the prime repository for wooly thinking and poorly conceived questions about testing. Recently I was involved in a conversation with someone who, at least, seemed to be more articulate than most of the people on LinkedIn. Alas, I’ve since lost the thread, and after some searching I’ve been unable to find it. No matter: the points of the discussion are, … Read more
Eric Jacobson has a problem, which he thoughtfully relates on his thoughtful blog in a post called “How Can I Tell Users What Testers Did?”. In this post, I’ll try to answer his question, so you might want to read his original post for context. I see something interesting here: Eric tells a clear story to relate to his readers some problem that he’s having with explaining his work to … Read more