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Re: [TenTec] Software Testing

To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Software Testing
From: Tom Badgett <tbadgett@idleaire.com>
Reply-to: tentec@contesting.com
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:12:51 -0400
List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
For those really interested in a nuts and bolts of software testing, consider "The Art of Software Testing," 2nd edition (Myers, Badgett, Thomas, et al), now available on Amazon. This is a classic text updated with many current examples and procedures.

73,
Tom
K4NOX

On Sep 20, 2004, at 8:30 AM, Mark Erbaugh wrote:

Has the art of software testing made any progress
since Dijkstra's conjecture (almost 40 years ago)
that it can only prove the presence of errors,
but not their absence?

Software testing still can't (except in very trivial cases) prove the
absence of errors, but there have been vast improvements in recent years.
Techniques such as test driven development all the developers to thoroughly
test (again, the thoroughness of the test is up to the skill of the
developer) the software under development and more importantly, verify that
code written to add a new feature or fix a problem doesn't break a
previously working feature.


When a new version is ready for release to end users, automated test
programs can simulate the testing of many users and can test the code more
thoroughly. For example, if it takes a complex series of steps to test a
particular feature of a program, users are less likely to test all the
possibilities at that stage than they are to test the features that are more
easily accessible. An automated test program doesn't care how complex a step
is.


73,
Mark

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