Testing Software

Thread Starter

chesart1

Joined Jan 23, 2006
269
Testing a software design is different from testing an electronic design. When testing a software design, don't confine your test to the tasks the software should perform. Test your software for things it should not do. Here is an example:

#include <iostream.h>
#include <math.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
double L, C, LC, S, FR, Pi;
char a;
a = 'n';
while (a == 'n')
{
L=C=0.0;
LC = S = FR =0.0;
Pi = 314.0;
while (L == 0)
{
L = 0;
cout << "\nenter inductance: ";
cin >> L;
if (L == 0) cout << " invalid entry";
}
while (C == 0)
{
C = 0;
cout << "\nenter capacitance: ";
cin >> C;
if (C == 0) cout << " invalid entry";
}
LC = L*C;
S = sqrt(LC);
FR = 1/(2*Pi*S);
cout << "\nThe resonant frequency is: " << FR << " cycles/sec\n";
cout << "\nExit? ";
cin >> a;
}
return 0;
}

If you only tested this small program for what it should do, your test would not reveal a bug in this program. Experienced programmers would probably spot the bug quickly.

A thorough test of the program would reveal that if the user accidentally enters a letter as a value for L or C, the program does not respond correctly.

As a software engineer or software test engineer, it is important to spot flaws that occur when the user makes a mistake.

Once I worked on a control panel and everything appeared to work okay long as I operated one switch at a time. I found a flaw when I operated two switches in rapid succession. The software did not respond to the latter switch movement.

One software engineer would hand me a software package to test while instructing me to search for ways to make the software fail. That was excellent advice!

John
 

Thread Starter

chesart1

Joined Jan 23, 2006
269
Microsoft Corporation has acknowledged that their blank blue screen of death [the one that you see during a computer crash] appears far too often.

Instead of correcting the problems, Microsoft decided to sell advertising space in that blank blue screen of death.

LOL!!!
 
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