Related Concerns

[thiruvasagamani]

Testing Phases

Related Concerns

Ideally, developers will write code with testing in mind. If the code will be hard to test and verify, then it should be rewritten to make it more testable. Likewise, a testing methodology should be judged by its contribution to solving automation and oracle problems. Too many methodologies provide little guidance in either area.

Another concern for testers while running and verifying tests is the coordination of debugging activity with developers. As failures are identified by testers and diagnosed by developers, two issues arise: failure reproduction and test scenario re-execution.

Failure reproduction is not the no-brainer it might seem. The obvious answer is, of course, to simply rerun the offending test and observe the errant behavior again, although rerunning a test does not guarantee that the exact same conditions will be created. Scenario re-execution requires that we know the exact state of the operating system and any companion software—for example, client–server applications would require reproduction of the conditions surrounding both the client and the server. Additionally, we must know the state of test automation, peripheral devices, and any other background application running locally or over the network that could affect the application being tested. It is no wonder that one of the most commonly heard phrases in a testing lab is, "Well, it was behaving differently before...."