Writing down what you learn is key to your retention. Today I learned a bit on the wisdom of software testing and took some notes that I thought interesting enough to share.

I will not get into testing techniques this time. I will try to get more specific next time.

Find Important Bugs#

Test:

  • core functions before supporting functions. Core functions are critical and the top N things that the product does. It’s the functions that make the product what it is.
  • capability before reliability. Test whether each function can work at all before going deep into the examination of how any one function performs under many different conditions.
  • high-impact problems. Test the parts of the product that would do a lot of damage in case of failure.
  • common situations before niche situations.
  • the most wanted areas before areas not requested. This mean, any areas and for any problems that are of special interest to someone else.
  • things that are changed before things that are the same. Fixes and updates mean fresh risk.
  • common threats before rare threats. Test with the most likely stress and error situations.

Mindset#

  • Like to dispel the illusion that things work.
  • Critical thinking — critical examination of belief.
  • If you want to be a good tester, learn to think like one, not look like one.
  • Anticipate risks that the programmer missed — The more you learn about a product, and the more ways in which you know it, the better you will be able to test it.
  • Learn about systems thinking.
  • Intuition is often strongly biased.
  • Be an explorer.
  • What you think “it works” means might not match someone else’s definition.
  • Don’t confuse the test with the testing.
  • Manage bias.
  • Convince yourself that you are easy to fool.
  • When you know a product well, you make more assumptions about it, and you check those assumptions less often.
  • Don’t restrict yourself to being a steward of received wisdom; be the author of your own wisdom.

Ideas#

Use heuristics to generate ideas for tests. Examples:

  • Test at the boundaries.
  • Test every error message.
  • Test configurations that are different from the programmer’s.
  • Run tests that are annoying to set up.
  • Avoid redundant tests.