Functional testing
Latest Column -- Inspired by taking AST's Bug Advocacy Class
Submitted by sbarber on Fri, 04/07/2008 - 05:54. bug tracking/incident management | context-driven testing | functional testing | heuristics | other online resources | perspectives | project management | test managementSoftware testing is improved by good bug reporting
I recently completed (successfully, I might add) the second of the Association for Software Testing's all online, free to members Black Box Software Testing course. Each of these courses is four weeks in length. I've been involved with this program since years before it became a program, and I am an instructor for the first course in the series, called Foundations. For this course, called Bug Advocacy, I was a student.
Testing Lessons From Civil Engineering
Submitted by sbarber on Sat, 21/06/2008 - 07:13. context-driven testing | development methodology | events | functional testing | general software testing | heuristics | patterns | perspectives | test analysisBelow is the paper I submitted as a prologue to an experience report, discussion, and (hopefully) additional research that I'm presenting for the first time during:
Registration for CAST 2008 now open!
Submitted by sbarber on Fri, 16/05/2008 - 04:48. context-driven testing | events | functional testing | general software testing | industry recognition | other online resources | perspectives | test management
The 3rd Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2008
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 14-16, 2008
Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing
Keynote Presentations by Gerald M. Weinberg,
Cem Kaner, Robert Sabourin, and Brian Fisher
Tutorials by Gerald M. Weinberg, Scott Barber, Hung Nguyen, and Julian Harty
The Association for Software Testing is pleased to announce its third annual conference (CAST 2008), to be held July 14-16. The meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, a city which features enormous diversity in culture, businesses, educational institutions, and the arts. Toronto is the perfect location for a conference on this year’s theme: "Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing".
You can view the most recent brochure here, and you can see the conference program here.
Multi-User Functional Testing
Submitted by Alexander Podelko on Sun, 02/03/2008 - 22:11. functional test patterns | functional testing | non-functional testing | performance testingIn the February issue of Software Test & Performance read Karen Johnson's article about multi-user testing (pp. 20-23). Karen writes about a very rare subject – functional multi-user testing. Should admit that I started to read with a thought "one more article about performance testing" – but soon realized that it is about quite different subject. And yes, indeed, without functional multi-user testing, most of errors mentioned in article will slip through (won't re-tell the article – it is available on-line, you can read it yourself). Some may be found during performance testing (probably the most severe like deadlocks – if they are in the typical scenarios you included in performance testing) – and you will need to trace them down to the source, and probably it will be much later down the cycle.
The LM DPS DE GCC test, + 40:00 years
Submitted by Erik Petersen on Tue, 22/01/2008 - 12:44. functional testing | perspectivesToday is the 40th anniversary of the first firing of a throttleable rocket in space. The Apollo 5 flight (aka 1968-007A, aka AS-204, aka 03106) had a mission patch but no astronauts to wear it. The flight was an unmanned test of the systems that would land man on the moon. In a high altitude test simulating a moon landing, the LM (Lunar Module) DPS (Descent Propulsion System) DE (Descent Engine) GCC (Guidance Control Computer) was supposedly programmed to fire the rocket for 39 seconds. It started then stopped after 4. Realizing this was a bug (not the obvious order of magnitude one confusing 4 secs for 40, it was actually related to slower than expected fuel tank pressurization), MC (Mission Control) took over and the burn and 4 followups were done by humans.
PR rounding: 1.94 to ..... two ....point five?
Submitted by Erik Petersen on Sun, 20/01/2008 - 08:20. functional testing | perspectivesRounding errors appear regularly in calculations in my experience and are sometimes unfixable, especially percentages not adding up to 100 . In fact, I had a percentage bug last week. I was contributing a defect status snapshot for a report. As well as bug counts for each status, there was also a percentage. I just presumed that they added to 100, but someone else pointed out they didn’t. As I was using a standard report in the bug tracker, I decided to use it as it was, even thought the total was only 97%.
I have never seen a rounding error in a press release, until now! If you were rounding 1.94 centimetres what would you round it to? Obviously the answer is 2 cm. In this case, it was rounded to 2.5. Huh? You’ll find the explanation here in an Australian business news column, a place where you don’t usually find articles about quality issues either!
Sapient Testing: Smart Stuff for Career Software Testers
Submitted by sbarber on Tue, 18/12/2007 - 04:35. acceptance testing | context-driven testing | functional testing | general software testing | non-functional testing | other online resources | performance testing | perspectives | project management | test management | test tools | useful utilities
December Issue of the Association for Software Testing Newsletter Now Available
I am proud to have my newest article published in the AST Newsletter, now titled Sapient Testing Magazine. You can download the December issue of Sapient Testing Magazine here.
A tale of 3 browser prints
Submitted by Erik Petersen on Mon, 17/09/2007 - 05:18. exploratory testing | functional testing"it was the best of prints, it was the worst of prints", with apologies to Charles Dickens. Sometimes we "accidentally" test: trying to get some task done, we actually discover things we don't want to when we just want to get the job done. I had this happen trying to print an article at a web site. My default browser was having problems with a plugin and appeared to crash during the print (let's call it browser A). I then used another browser to do the print (Browser B). When I went to collect my printout, I was surprised to find 2 print outs. Had I accidentally printed the page twice from Browser B? No, because the printouts were surprisingly different. Browser A printed 4 pages, with quite small print. Browser B printed 6 pages, but in a much larger, easier-to-read font. Curious. I then went back and tried it with a 3rd browser (browser C). Browser C printed in a readable font, but cut off the last words on each line, effectively making it impossible to read. I'd used default settings for each browser, and 3 different results.