Comments on: 30+ Common Testing Mistakes

By: 100+ Software Testing Blogs and Tweeters | Testing Excellence

100+ Software Testing Blogs and Tweeters | Testing Excellence — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:30:47 +0000

[...] 30+ Common Testing Mistakes [...]

By: Twitted by Hexawise

Twitted by Hexawise — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:44:21 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by Hexawise [...]

By: Jay Philips

Jay Philips — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:05:03 +0000

Hi Justin,

This is a very good point. There are times that teams only know one approach and they don't like to think outside of the box. The approach you point out is a very good and helpful approach, which does help find issues/bugs/defects much earlier in the project lifecycle.

Thanks,
Jay

By: Jay Philips

Jay Philips — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:02:34 +0000

This is a very good pint, people somethimes like to see the numbers, charts and graphs but don't really sit and learn what the numbers/charts really mean. Numbers are numbers but they will mean more if everyone understands what they mean.

By: Michael Bolton

Michael Bolton — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:25:58 +0000

@jimhanlon The most common mistake is not underestimating the number of test cases; the most common mistakes is *counting* test cases (a quantification that ALWAYS misleads) rather than thinking in terms of test coverage. See

http://www.developsense.com/articles/2008-10-Go...
http://www.developsense.com/articles/2008-11-Co...
http://www.developsense.com/articles/2008-11-AM...

Counting test cases is like counting white swans to validate your assumption that all swans are white. Bugs are black swans.

—Michael B.

By: Justin Hunter

Justin Hunter — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:17:36 +0000

Jay,

Thanks for taking the time to pull these lists together. They're great. They are always food for thought and often, as here, include great actionable recommendations.

Another common mistake is failing to use a structured approach (whether pairwise, or OA, or n-wise) to ensure that each test gets the most coverage possible. If people select combinations of values to include in each test manually, they invariably run into problems of (a) inadvertent repetition of combinations that have already been tested together and (b) accidentally forgetting to test other combinations that could trigger defects.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of a company that makes a test case generator using the above principles so you'd be right to be skeptical rather than take my claims at face value. Even so, test teams would be well advised to find out about pairwise and similar approaches. Used correctly, our tool and other similar ones reduce test case creation times, increase testing thoroughness, and make each test as "heavy" as possible to identify as many defects as possible in a relatively short number of test cases.

- Justin Hunter

By: Luis

Luis — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:33:04 +0000

Not only mistakes but also factors which might influence real testing practices would be also harmful. A panel of experts identified 23.

After collecting data in Spain from more than 130 professionals, I would like to receive opinion from more people in other countries to contrast if everybody think the same (data from 20 more people tend to confirm). Please, if you want helping me, access
http://www.cc.uah.es/encuestas/index.php?sid=28392

I commit to share results as soon as they were available

By: OpenQuality.ru | Ноябрьская лента: лучшее за месяц

OpenQuality.ru | Ноябрьская лента: лучшее за месяц — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:14:30 +0000

[...] • 30 типичных ошибок, случающихся при тестировании программного обеспечения. [...]

By: 30+ Common Testing Mistakes | Design Newz

30+ Common Testing Mistakes | Design Newz — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:31:20 +0000

[...] 30+ Common Testing Mistakes [...]

By: 30+ Common Testing Mistakes | favSHARE.net

30+ Common Testing Mistakes | favSHARE.net — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:34:10 +0000

[...] Read the original article [...]