I\u2019ve been having one of those experiences where a lot of the random bits of flotsam on my radar are sort of converging. But I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s really<\/i> convergence, or if I\u2019m forcing it. I hope it\u2019s the former, but time will tell.<\/p>\n
In my last post<\/a>, I reflected on a wonderful article from Phillip Armour. His breakdown of \u201ctests that tell us what we know\u201d (0OI tests), and tests that tell us what we don\u2019t know we don\u2019t know (2OI tests) aligns perfectly with something that\u2019s been gnawing at me for a long time.<\/p>\n You see, I\u2019m also bothered (and have been for years) to some extent by one of the more popular testing debates \u2013 the scripted vs. exploratory tests\u2026and to top it off, I\u2019m completely confused by the variety of reactions to the \u201ctest is dead\u201d statement one of my old friends has been spouting about recently (I warned you about random thoughts floating in my head\u2026)<\/p>\n But it\u2019s kind of coming together for me \u2013 some of it as I write these paragraphs.<\/p>\n A part of the problem is that what I call testing is probably different than what you call testing. That\u2019s also true if I turn it around \u2013 what you call testing is probably different than what I call testing. The difference is, that I don\u2019t care what you call testing, and some of you Testing, in some intersection of our combined testing definitions, contains a lot of 0OI tests. \u201cWhen you enter 2 + 2 in the calculator, the display shall enter 4\u201d, or \u201cSave the file and ensure it is created\u201d, or \u201cWhen the user clicks the submit button without a user name, they shall receive an error message\u201d. Many in the test community refer to these as \u201cchecks\u201d, and I\u2019m ok with that term, but to me, these are a type<\/i> of test rather than something different than tests.<\/p>\n Whether you call these tests, checks, or 0OI tests (my current favorite), I don\u2019t want to do them<\/i><\/b>. It\u2019s not just that 0OI tests bore me (because they bore me to tears), but because I think it\u2019s fiscally irresponsible to push verification of mind-numbingly basic functionality so far downstream. In my opinion, developers should do this work, but I guess if any testers find 0OI tests entertaining, I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a lazy developer somewhere who\u2019d like to hire you as his cabin boy. <\/p>\n Short story is that 0OI tests are dead to me.<\/em><\/p>\n And then there\u2019s 2OI work \u2013 the kind of work good testers love to do. 2OI testing is the land of \u201cI wonder what happens when\u2026\u201d, and \u201cHow can I get the program to\u2026\u201d tests. 2OI tests can be manual or leverage tools or automation. Any form of discovery (or new knowledge acquisition) about the software is 2OI testing.<\/p>\n Testers not infatuated with Armour the way I am typically call 2OI testing exploratory testing<\/em> (true for both manual or automated 2OI tests). In Armour\u2019s recent article on testing<\/a> that I mentioned in my previous post, he suggests that the sweet spot for 2OI (exploratory) effectiveness is about 50% \u2013 meaning that about half of your tests should discover product issues. If you\u2019re finding less, you could vary your techniques, and if you\u2019re finding more, you should back off the effort. I haven\u2019t applied that concept yet when performing testing, but I plan to the next time I conduct a testing session.<\/p>\n But, the way I see it, exploratory testing is dead too<\/i>. OK \u2013 that statement was overly controversial. What\u2019s dead to me, is the term<\/i> exploratory testing. To me, it\u2019s just testing. It\u2019s all just testing.<\/u><\/i> <\/b>I wrote a blog post once<\/a> about this subject (see last three paragraphs to avoid most of my snarkiness) \u2013 then one of the top practitioners of ET wrote this post with a similar stance<\/a> \u2013 but it seems every tester in the world is still compelled to proclaim they are \u201cexploratory testers\u201d, because they like to use their brain while they\u2019re testing. All of this is fine, of course, one can use whatever terms they like, but to me, at least, it\u2019s all just testing<\/i>. <\/p>\n Testers do some of it. Others do some more of it. Some of it\u2019s dead to me, and perhaps none of it is dead to you. It doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n It\u2019s all just testing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been having one of those experiences where a lot of the random bits of flotsam on my radar are sort of converging. But I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s really convergence, or if I\u2019m forcing it. I hope it\u2019s the former, but time will tell. In my last post, I reflected on a wonderful article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} care a lot<\/strike> get really pissed off<\/i> when somebody calls something testing that doesn\u2019t match your definition.<\/p>\n