[TIP] A rare philosophical thought

[Bob Clancy]

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at  2:16 PM, C. Titus Brown wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 01, 2008 at 01:01:59PM -0500, Bob Clancy wrote:
> -> Testing goes further than your definition above.

> I think this is covered -- if the code is actually going to be used in
> such a way that it crashes, or the program doesn't satisfy the actual
> needs of the user, then that is an *actual circumstance* and a 
> mismatch
> between what was tested.

It's covered as long as good tests are written in the first place.  (Not 
all programmers are equal when it comes to testing.)

> On other words, if a buggy bit of code is never actually run by 
> anyone,
> is it a bug in any real sense?
Unreachable buggy code is an accident waiting to happen.  (but of course 
you would refactor this code out to prevent such a future problem).

> Ehh.  I'm probably being too programmer-centric and perfectionist.

A little so, and I'm being too non-programmer-centric.  As I hinted to 
above, it all depends on the context/dynamics of the team.  The other 
post (self-described as a rant, but not) covers the issues of having 
wholistic tests at appropriate places, so I wont go into that here.

In short, for your team, your definition of testing has it covered, but 
introduce a few not so perfect people and it falls apart.

--
Bob