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Software Testing Controversies
There is considerable variety among software testing writers and consultants about what constitutes responsible software testing. Proponents of a context-driven approach consider much of the writing about software testing to be doctrine, while others believe this contradicts the IEEE 829 documentation standard. Best practices Proponents of the context-driven approach believe that there are no best practices of testing, but rather that testing is a set of skills that allow the tester to select or invent testing practices to suit each unique situation. James Marcus Bach wrote "...there is no practice that is better than all other possible practices, regardless of the context." However, some testing practitioners do not see an issue with the concept of "best practices" and do not believe that term implies that a practice is universally applicable. Types of software testing Agile vs. traditional Starting around 1990, a new style of writing about testing began to challenge wha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Testing
Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test techniques include, but not necessarily limited to: * analyzing the product requirements for completeness and correctness in various contexts like industry perspective, business perspective, feasibility and viability of implementation, usability, performance, security, infrastructure considerations, etc. * reviewing the product architecture and the overall design of the product * working with product developers on improvement in coding techniques, design patterns, tests that can be written as part of code based on various techniques like boundary conditions, etc. * executing a program or application with the intent of examining behavior * reviewing the deployment infrastructure a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test-driven Development
Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process relying on software requirements being converted to test cases before software is fully developed, and tracking all software development by repeatedly testing the software against all test cases. This is as opposed to software being developed first and test cases created later. Software engineer Kent Beck, who is credited with having developed or "rediscovered" the technique, stated in 2003 that TDD encourages simple designs and inspires confidence. Test-driven development is related to the test-first programming concepts of extreme programming, begun in 1999, but more recently has created more general interest in its own right.Newkirk, JW and Vorontsov, AA. ''Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET'', Microsoft Press, 2004. Programmers also apply the concept to improving and debugging legacy code developed with older techniques.Feathers, M. Working Effectively with Legacy Code, Prentice Hall, 2004 Test-driven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firmware
In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide hardware abstraction services to higher-level software such as operating systems. For less complex devices, firmware may act as the device's complete operating system, performing all control, monitoring and data manipulation functions. Typical examples of devices containing firmware are embedded systems (running embedded software), home and personal-use appliances, computers, and computer peripherals. Firmware is held in non-volatile memory devices such as ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory. Updating firmware requires ROM integrated circuits to be physically replaced, or EPROM or flash memory to be reprogrammed through a special procedure. Some firmware memory devices are permanently installed and cannot be changed after manufacture. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observer Effect (information Technology)
In information technology, the observer effect is the impact on the behaviour of a computer process caused by the act of observing the process while it is running. For example: if a process uses a log file to record its progress, the process could slow down. Furthermore, the act of viewing the file while the process is running could cause an I/O error in the process, which could, in turn, cause it to stop. Another example would be observing the performance of a CPU by running both the observed and observing programs on the same CPU, which will lead to inaccurate results because the observer program itself affects the CPU performance (modern, heavily cached and pipelined CPUs are particularly affected by this kind of observation). The observer effect could either have a positive or negative impact on the computer process behaviour. A positive impact can be software bugs, also known as Heisenbugs, which diminish or change their negative behavior when observation mechanisms, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncertainty Principle
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as position, ''x'', and momentum, ''p'', can be predicted from initial conditions. Such variable pairs are known as complementary variables or canonically conjugate variables; and, depending on interpretation, the uncertainty principle limits to what extent such conjugate properties maintain their approximate meaning, as the mathematical framework of quantum physics does not support the notion of simultaneously well-defined conjugate properties expressed by a single value. The uncertainty principle implies that it is in general not possible to predict the value of a quantity with arbitrary certainty, even if all initial conditions are specified. Introduced first in 1927 by the German physicist Werner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series of papers with Max Born and Pascual Jordan, during the same year, his matrix formulation of quantum mechanics was substantially elaborated. He is known for the uncertainty principle, which he published in 1927. Heisenberg was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the creation of quantum mechanics". Heisenberg also made contributions to the theories of the hydrodynamics of turbulent flows, the atomic nucleus, ferromagnetism, cosmic rays, and subatomic particles. He was a principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program during World War II. He was also instrumental in planning the first West German nuclear reactor at Karlsruhe, together with a research reactor in Munich, in 1957. Following World War II, he was appointed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heisenbug
In computer programming jargon, a heisenbug is a software bug that seems to disappear or alter its behavior when one attempts to study it. The term is a pun on the name of Werner Heisenberg, the physicist who first asserted the observer effect of quantum mechanics, which states that the act of observing a system inevitably alters its state. In electronics, the traditional term is probe effect, where attaching a test probe to a device changes its behavior. Similar terms, such as ''bohrbug'', ''mandelbug'', ''hindenbug'', and ''schrödinbug'' (see the section on related terms) have been occasionally proposed for other kinds of unusual software bugs, sometimes in jest. Examples Heisenbugs occur because common attempts to debug a program, such as inserting output statements or running it with a debugger, usually have the side-effect of altering the behavior of the program in subtle ways, such as changing the memory addresses of variables and the timing of its execution. One comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
is a Latin phrase found in the work of the Roman poet Juvenal from his ''Satires'' (Satire VI, lines 347–348). It is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?", though it is also known by variant translations, such as "Who watches the watchers?" and "Who will watch the watchmen?". The original context deals with the problem of ensuring marital fidelity, though the phrase is now commonly used more generally to refer to the problem of controlling the actions of persons in positions of power, an issue discussed by Plato in the '' Republic''. It is not clear whether the phrase was written by Juvenal, or whether the passage in which it appears was interpolated into his works. Original context The phrase, as it is normally quoted in Latin, comes from the ''Satires'' of Juvenal, the 1st–2nd century Roman satirist. Although in its modern usage the phrase has universal, timeless applications to concepts such as tyrannical governments, uncontrollably oppressive d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agile Development
In software development, agile (sometimes written Agile) practices include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/ end user(s), adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continual improvement, and flexible responses to changes in requirements, capacity, and understanding of the problems to be solved. Popularized in the 2001 ''Manifesto for Agile Software Development'', these values and principles were derived from and underpin a broad range of software development frameworks, including Scrum and Kanban. While there is much anecdotal evidence that adopting agile practices and values improves the effectiveness of software professionals, teams and organizations, the empirical evidence is mixed and hard to find. History Iterative and incremental software development methods can be traced back as early as 1957,Gerald M. Weinberg, as quoted in "We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IEEE 829
Status of IEEE 829 Note: IEEE 829-2008 has been superseded by ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3:2013. Background to IEEE 829 IEEE 829-2008, also known as the 829 Standard for Software and System Test Documentation, was an IEEE standard that specified the form of a set of documents for use in eight defined stages of software testing and system testing, each stage potentially producing its own separate type of document. The standard specified the format of these documents, but did not stipulate whether they must all be produced, nor did it include any criteria regarding adequate content for these documents. These were a matter of judgment outside the purview of the standard. Documents Required by IEEE 829 The documents are: *Master Test Plan (MTP): The purpose of the Master Test Plan (MTP) is to provide an overall test planning and test management document for multiple levels of test (either within one project or across multiple projects). *Level Test Plan (LTP): For each LTP the scope, appro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test Automation
In software testing, test automation is the use of software separate from the software being tested to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes. Test automation can automate some repetitive but necessary tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or perform additional testing that would be difficult to do manually. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing. There are many approaches to test automation, however below are the general approaches used widely: * Graphical user interface testing. A testing framework that generates user interface events such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, and observes the changes that result in the user interface, to validate that the observable behavior of the program is correct. * API driven testing. A testing framework that uses a programming interface to the application to validate the behaviour under test. Typically API driven testing bypasses appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exploratory Test
Exploratory testing is an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test design and test execution. Cem Kaner, who coined the term in 1984, defines exploratory testing as "a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project." While the software is being tested, the tester learns things that together with experience and creativity generates new good tests to run. Exploratory testing is often thought of as a black box testing technique. Instead, those who have studied it consider it a test ''approach'' that can be applied to any test technique, at any stage in the development process. The key is not the test technique nor the item being tested or reviewed; the key is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
