Quote of the day

"Never mistake motion for action."     -Ernest Hemingway

The BS7925-2 Standard for Software Component Testing

This doc is now 11 years old, but has some really good basic ideas for proceeding through a release cycle.  While on first glance the doc looks to be ginormous, it's not really that bad; the meat of it is really covered in the first 30%. Sections of interest:

• 2.1.1.8 mentions the order in which test activities should be done--it includes Component Test Specification (sandwiched between Planning and Execution)
• 2.3 "Component test specification".  In brief, tests are written here using the techniques that were determined doing Planning (read: tests weren't written during Planning, but the techniques were chosen then)
• 3 "Test Case Design Techniques".  Concisely describes popular and useful techniques for creating test cases for a component.
• 4 "Test Measurement Techniques".  These aren't criteria, but rather methods for helping to figure out progress--and maybe setting criteria based on this info.  They show how to do this for each test case technique type in section 3 (most are pretty obvious, but it's still nice to see on paper).

Grab some coffee and take a gander, here.  Oh ya, and in case you're familiar with this group, this doc was produced by the BCS SIGIST.  (seriously, why?  I guess the real question is why "British Computer Society Specialist Interest Group in Software Testing"?  Reminds me of Monty Python's Life of Brian...)

softwaretestingsucks.com

I'm not exactly sure how this got started, but there are actually a few decent articles/pages of info in here on the basics of testing:

• What is Quality?
• Life Cycle testing
• Testing Types
• Testing Techniques
• Testing Tools
• Certification Programs
• Testing Jokes

Beware--in that last one, the jokes are uber-cheesey, and mostly only remotely entertaining to the Test Geek... Check it out here.

Testing Removable Media

Guys on the UK's The Gadget Show cook with propane, freeze with dry ice, submerge in acidic liquids, drive over, and mortar-fire against a wall a number of types of removable media.  Good stuff.

Negative test cases

I came across this today while doing some Test Analysis research.  It's nothing super profound, but a good checklist for writing negative test cases--if you're in to that sort of thing. [via PragmaticSW]