Software Testing Basics

Introduction to Software Testing
Chapter 1
Introduction
&
The Model-Driven Test Design Process
Paul Ammann & Jeff Offutt

http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/softwaretest/

Updated 24-August 2010

Testing in the 21st Century
 Software defines behavior
– network routers, finance, switching networks, other infrastructure

 Today’s software market : Industry is going
– is much bigger through a revolution in
– is more competitive what testing means to
– has more users the success of software
 Embedded Control Applications products
– airplanes, air traffic control – PDAs
– spaceships – memory seats
– watches – DVD players
– garage door openers
– ovens
– cell phones
– remote controllers

 Agile processes put increased pressure on testers
– Programmers must unit test – with no training, education or tools !
– Tests are key to functional requirements – but who builds those tests ?
Introduction to Software Testing (Ch 1) © Ammann & Offutt 2

OUTLINE
1. Spectacular Software Failures

2. Why Test?

3. What Do We Do When We Test ?

• Test Activities and Model-Driven Testing

4. Software Testing Terminology

5. Changing Notions of Testing

6. Test Maturity Levels

7. Summary

The First Bugs
Hopper’s
―bug‖ (moth
stuck in a
relay on an
early machine)

―an analyzing process must
equally have been performed in ―It has been just so in all of my
order to furnish the Analytical inventions. The first step is an
Engine with the necessary intuition, and comes with a burst,
operative data; and that herein then difficulties arise—this thing
may also lie a possible source of gives out and [it is] then that
error. Granted that the actual 'Bugs'—as such little faults and
mechanism is unerring in its difficulties are called—show
processes, the cards may give it themselves and months of intense
wrong orders. ‖ – Ada, Countess watching, study and labor are
Lovelace (notes on Babbage’s requisite. . .‖ – Thomas Edison
Analytical Engine)

Costly Software Failures
 NIST report, ―The Economic Impacts of Inadequate
Infrastructure for Software Testing‖ (2002)
– Inadequate software testing costs the US alone between $22 and
$59 billion annually
– Better approaches could cut this amount in half
 Huge losses due to web application failures
– Financial services : $6.5 million per hour (just in USA!)
– Credit card sales applications : $2.4 million per hour (in USA)
 In Dec 2006, amazon.com’s BOGO offer turned into a
double discount
 2007 : Symantec says that most security vulnerabilities are
due to faulty software
World-wide monetary loss due to poor software is staggering

Spectacular Software Failures
 NASA’s Mars lander: September 1999, crashed Ariane 5:
due to a units integration fault Mars Polar exception-handling
Lander crash bug : forced self
site? destruct on maiden
flight (64-bit to 16-bit
 Toyota brakes : Dozens dead, thousands of conversion: about
crashes 370 million $ lost)
 Major failures: Ariane 5 explosion, Mars Polar
Lander, Intel’s Pentium FDIV bug
 Poor testing of safety-critical software can cost
lives :
 THERAC-25 radiation machine: 3 dead THERAC-25 design

We need our software to be dependable
Testing is one way to assess dependability

Software is a Skin that Surrounds
Our Civilization

Quote due to Dr. Mark Harman


Bypass Testing Results

v

— Vasileios Papadimitriou. Masters thesis, Automating Bypass Testing for Web Applications, GMU 2006

Airbus 319 Safety Critical
Software Control

Loss of autopilot

Loss of most flight deck lighting and intercom

Loss of both the commander’s and the co-pilot’s
primary flight and navigation displays !

Northeast Blackout of 2003
508 generating
units and 256
power plants shut
down

Affected 10 million
people in Ontario,
Canada
Affected 40 million
people in 8 US
states
Financial losses of
$6 Billion USD

The alarm system in the energy management system failed
due to a software error and operators were not informed of
the power overload in the system

What Does This Mean?

Software testing is getting more
important


Testing in the 21st Century
 More safety critical, real-time software
 Embedded software is ubiquitous … check your pockets
 Enterprise applications means bigger programs, more
users
 Paradoxically, free software increases our expectations !
 Security is now all about software faults
– Secure software is reliable software
 The web offers a new deployment platform
– Very competitive and very available to more users
– Web apps are distributed
– Web apps must be highly reliable
Industry desperately needs our inventions !

OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Here! Test This!
My first ―professional‖ job
Big software big
MicroSteff – program
software system
for the mac

V.1.5.1 Jan/2007
Jan/2007

1.44 MB
MF2-HD
DataLife
Verdatim

A stack of computer printouts—and no documentation

Cost of Testing
You’re going to spend at least half of
your development budget on testing,
whether you want to or not

 In the real-world, testing is the principle post-
design activity

 Restricting early testing usually increases cost

 Extensive hardware-software integration
requires more testing

Why Test?
If you don’t know why you’re conducting
each test, it won’t be very helpful
 Writtentest objectives and requirements must
be documented
 What are your planned coverage levels?
 How much testing is enough?

 Common objective – spend the budget … test
until the ship-date …
– Sometimes called the ―date criterion‖


Why Test?
If you don’t start planning for each test when
the functional requirements are formed, you’ll
never know why you’re conducting the test
 1980: ―The software shall be easily
maintainable‖

 Threshold reliability requirements?

 What fact is each test trying to verify?

 Requirements definition teams need testers!

Cost of Not Testing
Program Managers often say:
“Testing is too expensive.”
 Not testing is even more expensive

 Planning for testing after development is
prohibitively expensive

A test station for circuit boards costs half a
million dollars …

 Software test tools cost less than $10,000 !!!

1990s Thinking

They’re teaching a new way Naw - I already
of plowing over at the Grange don’t plow as good
tonight - you going? as I know how...

Fail !!!

―Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.‖
Goethe

OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Test Design in Context
 Test Design is the process of designing
input values that will effectively test
software

 Test design is one of several activities
for testing software
– Most mathematical
– Most technically challenging

 http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/softwaretest/


Types of Test Activities
 Testing can be broken up into four general types of activities
1. Test Design 1.a) Criteria-based
2. Test Automation 1.b) Human-based
3. Test Execution
4. Test Evaluation
 Each type of activity requires different skills, background
knowledge, education and training
 No reasonable software development organization uses the same
people for requirements, design, implementation, integration
and configuration control
Why do test organizations still use the same people
for all four test activities??
This is clearly a waste of resources

1. Test Design – (a) Criteria-Based
Design test values to satisfy coverage criteria
or other engineering goal
 This is the most technical job in software testing
 Requires knowledge of :
– Discrete math
– Programming
– Testing
 Requires much of a traditional CS degree
 This is intellectually stimulating, rewarding, and challenging
 Test design is analogous to software architecture on the
development side
 Using people who are not qualified to design tests is a sure way to
get ineffective tests

1. Test Design – (b) Human-Based
Design test values based on domain knowledge of
the program and human knowledge of testing
 This is much harder than it may seem to developers
 Criteria-based approaches can be blind to special situations
– Domain, testing, and user interfaces
 Requires almost no traditional CS
– A background in the domain of the software is essential
– An empirical background is very helpful (biology, psychology, …)
– A logic background is very helpful (law, philosophy, math, …)
– But not to typical CS majors – they want to solve problems and build
things


2. Test Automation
Embed test values into executable scripts
 This is slightly less technical
 Requires knowledge of programming
– Fairly straightforward programming – small pieces and simple algorithms
 Requires very little theory
 Very boring for test designers
 Programming is out of reach for many domain experts
 Who is responsible for determining and embedding the expected
outputs ?
– Test designers may not always know the expected outputs
– Test evaluators need to get involved early to help with this


3. Test Execution
Run tests on the software and record the results
 This is easy – and trivial if the tests are well automated
 Requires basic computer skills
– Interns
– Employees with no technical background
 Asking qualified test designers to execute tests is a sure way to
convince them to look for a development job
 If, for example, GUI tests are not well automated, this requires a
lot of manual labor
 Test executors have to be very careful and meticulous with
bookkeeping


4. Test Evaluation
Evaluate results of testing, report to developers
 This is much harder than it may seem
– Domain
– Testing
– User interfaces and psychology
 Usually requires almost no traditional CS
– A background in the domain of the software is essential
– An empirical background is very helpful (biology, psychology, …)
– A logic background is very helpful (law, philosophy, math, …)
– But not to typical CS majors – they want to solve problems and build
things


Other Activities
 Test management : Sets policy, organizes team, interfaces with
development, chooses criteria, decides how much automation is
needed, …
 Test maintenance : Save tests for reuse as software evolves
– Requires cooperation of test designers and automators
– Deciding when to trim the test suite is partly policy and partly technical –
and in general, very hard !
– Tests should be put in configuration control
 Test documentation : All parties participate
– Each test must document ―why‖ – criterion and test requirement satisfied
or a rationale for human-designed tests
– Ensure traceability throughout the process
– Keep documentation in the automated tests


Types of Test Activities – Summary
1a. Design Design test values to satisfy engineering goals
Criteria Requires knowledge of discrete math, programming and testing
1b. Design Design test values from domain knowledge and intuition
Human Requires knowledge of domain, UI, testing
2. Automation Embed test values into executable scripts
Requires knowledge of scripting
3. Execution Run tests on the software and record the results
Requires very little knowledge
4. Evaluation Evaluate results of testing, report to developers
Requires domain knowledge

 These four general test activities are quite different
 It is a poor use of resources to use people inappropriately


Organizing the Team
 A mature test organization needs only one test designer to work
with several test automators, executors and evaluators
 Improved automation will reduce the number of test executors
– Theoretically to zero … but not in practice
 Putting the wrong people on the wrong tasks leads to
inefficiency, low job satisfaction and low job performance
– A qualified test designer will be bored with other tasks and look for a job
in development
– A qualified test evaluator will not understand the benefits of test criteria
 Test evaluators have the domain knowledge, so they must be free
to add tests that ―blind‖ engineering processes will not think of
 The four test activities are quite different

Many test teams use the same people for ALL FOUR
activities !!

Applying Test Activities

To use our people effectively
and to test efficiently
we need a process that

lets test designers
raise their level of abstraction


Using MDTD in Practice
 This approach lets one test designer do the math
 Then traditional testers and programmers can do their
parts
– Find values
– Automate the tests
– Run the tests
– Evaluate the tests
 Just like in traditional engineering … an engineer constructs
models with calculus, then gives direction to carpenters,
electricians, technicians, …

Testers ain’t mathematicians !

Model-Driven Test Design
refined
model / test
requirements /
structure requirements
test specs
test
requirements DESIGN
ABSTRACTION
LEVEL
IMPLEMENTATION
software
ABSTRACTION
artifact input
LEVEL
values

pass / test test test
fail results scripts cases


Model-Driven Test Design – Steps
criterion refine refined
model / test
requirements /
test specs generate
analysis test
requirements
domain DESIGN
analysis ABSTRACTION
LEVEL
IMPLEMENTATION
software
ABSTRACTION
artifact input
LEVEL
values

evaluate execute prefix
automate
pass / test test test postfix
fail results scripts cases expected


Model-Driven Test Design – Activities
refined
model / test
requirements /
test specs
Test Design DESIGN
ABSTRACTION
LEVEL
IMPLEMENTATION
Raising our abstraction level makes
ABSTRACTION
software test design MUCH easier
LEVEL input
artifact values

pass / test test test
fail results scripts cases
Test Test
Evaluation Execution

Small Illustrative Example

Software Artifact : Java Method Control Flow Graph
/**
* Return index of node n at the 1 i = 0
* first position it appears,
* -1 if it is not present
*/ 2 i < path.size()
public int indexOf (Node n)
{
for (int i=0; i < path.size(); i++) 3 if
if (path.get(i).equals(n))
return i;
return -1; 5 4
}
return -1 return i


Example (2)
Support tool for graph coverage
http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/softwaretest/
Edges 6 requirements for
Graph 12 Edge-Pair Coverage
Abstract version 23 1. [1, 2, 3]
1 32 2. [1, 2, 5]
34 3. [2, 3, 4]
25 4. [2, 3, 2]
2 Initial Node: 1 5. [3, 2, 3]
Final Nodes: 4, 5 6. [3, 2, 5]
3 Test Paths
[1, 2, 5]
[1, 2, 3, 2, 5] Find values …
5 4
[1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4]

Types of Activities in the Book

Most of this book is on test design
Other activities are well covered elsewhere


OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Software Testing Terms

 Like any field, software testing comes with a large number of
specialized terms that have particular meanings in this context

 Some of the following terms are standardized, some are used
consistently throughout the literature and the industry, but some
vary by author, topic, or test organization

 The definitions here are intended to be the most commonly used


Important Terms
Validation & Verification (IEEE)
 Validation : The process of evaluating software at the end of
software development to ensure compliance with intended
usage

 Verification : The process of determining whether the products
of a given phase of the software development process fulfill the
requirements established during the previous phase

IV&V stands for ―independent verification and validation‖


Test Engineer & Test Managers
 Test Engineer : An IT professional who is in charge of one or
more technical test activities
– designing test inputs
– producing test values
– running test scripts
– analyzing results
– reporting results to developers and managers

 Test Manager : In charge of one or more test engineers
– sets test policies and processes
– interacts with other managers on the project
– otherwise helps the engineers do their work


Static and Dynamic Testing

 Static Testing : Testing without executing the program
– This include software inspections and some forms of analyses
– Very effective at finding certain kinds of problems – especially ―potential‖ faults,
that is, problems that could lead to faults when the program is modified

 Dynamic Testing : Testing by executing the program with real
inputs


Software Faults, Errors & Failures
 Software Fault : A static defect in the software

 Software Failure : External, incorrect behavior with respect to
the requirements or other description of the expected behavior

 Software Error : An incorrect internal state that is the
manifestation of some fault

Faults in software are equivalent to design mistakes in
hardware.
They were there at the beginning and do not ―appear‖ when
a part wears out.


Testing & Debugging

 Testing : Finding inputs that cause the software to fail

 Debugging : The process of finding a fault given a failure


Fault & Failure Model
Three conditions necessary for a failure to be observed

1. Reachability : The location or locations in the program that
contain the fault must be reached

2. Infection : The state of the program must be incorrect

3. Propagation : The infected state must propagate to cause some
output of the program to be incorrect


Test Case

 Test Case Values : The values that directly satisfy one test
requirement

 Expected Results : The result that will be produced when
executing the test if the program satisfies it intended behavior


Observability and Controllability

 Software Observability : How easy it is to observe the behavior
of a program in terms of its outputs, effects on the environment
and other hardware and software components
– Software that affects hardware devices, databases, or remote files have low
observability

 Software Controllability : How easy it is to provide a program
with the needed inputs, in terms of values, operations, and
behaviors
– Easy to control software with inputs from keyboards
– Inputs from hardware sensors or distributed software is harder
– Data abstraction reduces controllability and observability


Inputs to Affect Controllability and
Observability
 Prefix Values : Any inputs necessary to put the software into
the appropriate state to receive the test case values

 Postfix Values : Any inputs that need to be sent to the software
after the test case values

 Two types of postfix values
1. Verification Values : Values necessary to see the results of the test case values
2. Exit Commands : Values needed to terminate the program or otherwise return it
to a stable state

 Executable Test Script : A test case that is prepared in a form
to be executed automatically on the test software and produce
a report


Stress Testing
Tests that are at the limit of the software’s expected
input domain
 Very large numeric values (or very small)
 Very long strings, empty strings
 Null references
 Very large files
 Many users making requests at the same time
 Invalid values


Top-Down and Bottom-Up Testing

 Top-Down Testing : Test the main procedure, then go down
through procedures it calls, and so on

 Bottom-Up Testing : Test the leaves in the tree (procedures that
make no calls), and move up to the root.
– Each procedure is not tested until all of its children have been tested


White-box and Black-box Testing
 Black-box testing : Deriving tests from external
descriptions of the software, including specifications,
requirements, and design
 White-box testing : Deriving tests from the source code
internals of the software, specifically including
branches, individual conditions, and statements
 Model-based testing : Deriving tests from a model of the
software (such as a UML diagram

MDTD makes these distinctions less important.
The more general question is: from what level of
abstraction to we derive tests?

Old : Testing at Different Levels
 Acceptance testing: Is
main Class P the software acceptable
to the user?

 System testing: Test the
overall functionality of
the system
Class A Class B
 Integration testing:
method mA1() method mB1() Test how modules
interact with each
other
method mA2() method mB2()
 Module testing: Test
each class, file, module
or component
 Unit testing: Test each
unit (method)
This view obscures underlying similarities individually


OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Changing Notions of Testing
 Old view considered testing at each software
development phase to be very different form other phases
– Unit, module, integration, system …

 New view is in terms of structures and criteria
– Graphs, logical expressions, syntax, input space

 Test design is largely the same at each phase
– Creating the model is different
– Choosing values and automating the tests is different


New : Test Coverage Criteria

A tester’s job is simple : Define a model of the
software, then find ways
to cover it
 Test Requirements : Specific things that must be satisfied or
covered during testing

 Test Criterion : A collection of rules and a process that define
test requirements

Testing researchers have defined dozens of criteria, but they
are all really just a few criteria on four types of structures …


Criteria Based on Structures
Structures : Four ways to model software
1. Graphs

2. Logical Expressions (not X or not Y) and A and B

A: {0, 1, >1}
3. Input Domain B: {600, 700, 800}
C: {swe, cs, isa, infs}
Characterization
if (x > y)
z = x - y;
4. Syntactic Structures else
z = 2 * x;

Source of Structures
 These structures can be extracted from lots of software
artifacts
– Graphs can be extracted from UML use cases, finite state
machines, source code, …
– Logical expressions can be extracted from decisions in
program source, guards on transitions, conditionals in use
cases, …
 This is not the same as ―model-based testing,‖ which
derives tests from a model that describes some aspects
of the system under test
– The model usually describes part of the behavior
– The source is usually not considered a model


1. Graph Coverage – Structural

2 6

1 5 7

3 Node (Statement)
Edge (Branch)
Path
Cover every node
Cover every edge
Cover every path
This graph may represent •••12567
12567
12567
• statements & branches 4
•••1343567
1343567
1257
• methods & calls
••1357
13567
• components & signals
• states and transitions • 1357
• 1343567
Introduction to Software Testing (Ch 1) © Ammann & Offutt • 134357 … 59

1. Graph Coverage – Data Flow
def = {m}
def = {a , m}
use = {y}
2 6
def = {x, y} use = {x} use = {a} use = {m}

1 5 use = {a} 7
use = {x} def = {a}
DefsDefs
All & Uses Pairs
3 All Uses
•Every(1,2)), (x, 1, (1,3))
(x, 1, def used once
Every def “reaches” every
• (y, 1, 4), (y, 1, 6)
use
• 1, 2, 5, 6, 7
This graph contains: 4 • (a, 2, (5,6)), (a, 2, (5,7)), (a,
••(5,6)), 5, 6, 7
1, 2,
3, 1, 2, 5, 7 3, (5,7)),
(a,
• defs: nodes & edges where def = {m}
variables get values •1, 2, 7), (m, 7
1, 2, 5, 7
••(m, 3, 4, 3, 5,4, 7), (m, 6, 7)
use = {y}
• uses: nodes & edges where • 1, 3, 5, 6, 7
values are accessed
• 1, 3, 5, 7
• 1, 3, 4, 3, 5,7

1. Graph - FSM Example
Memory Seats in a Lexus ES 300
Guard (safety constraint) Trigger (input)

[Ignition = off] | Button2
Driver 1 Driver 2
Configuration Configuration
[Ignition = off] | Button1
[Ignition = on] | seatBack ()
[Ignition = on] | seatBottom ()
New Ignition = off
[Ignition = on] | lumbar ()
(to Modified) Configuration
[Ignition = on] | sideMirrors ()
Driver 2
Ignition = off
[Ignition = on] | Reset AND Button2
New
Modified
Configuration
Configuration
Driver 1
[Ignition = on] | Reset AND Button1


2. Logical Expressions

( (a > b) or G ) and (x < y)

Transitions

Logical
Program Decision Statements
Expressions

Software Specifications


2. Logical Expressions
( (a > b) or G ) and (x < y)
 Predicate Coverage : Each predicate must be true and
false
– ( (a>b) or G ) and (x < y) = True, False

 Clause Coverage : Each clause must be true and false
– (a > b) = True, False
– G = True, False
– (x < y) = True, False

 Combinatorial Coverage : Various combinations of
clauses
– Active Clause Coverage: Each clause must determine the predicate’s
result

2. Logic – Active Clause Coverage

( (a > b) or G ) and (x < y)
With these values
for G and (x<y), 1 T F T
(a>b) determines
the value of the
predicate
2 F F T
3 F T T duplicate

4 F F T
5 T T T
6 T T F

3. Input Domain Characterization
 Describe the input domain of the software
– Identify inputs, parameters, or other categorization
– Partition each input into finite sets of representative values
– Choose combinations of values
 System level
– Number of students { 0, 1, >1 }
– Level of course { 600, 700, 800 }
– Major { swe, cs, isa, infs }
 Unit level
– Parameters F (int X, int Y)
– Possible values X: { <0, 0, 1, 2, >2 }, Y : { 10, 20, 30 }
– Tests
• F (-5, 10), F (0, 20), F (1, 30), F (2, 10), F (5, 20)


4. Syntactic Structures
 Based on a grammar, or other syntactic definition
 Primary example is mutation testing
1. Induce small changes to the program: mutants
2. Find tests that cause the mutant programs to fail: killing mutants
3. Failure is defined as different output from the original program
4. Check the output of useful tests on the original program
 Example program and mutants
if (x > y)
if (x >= y)
if (x > y)
z = x - y;
z = x - y;
 z = x + y;
else
 z = x – m;
z = 2 * x;
else
z = 2 * x;

Coverage Overview
Four Structures for
Modeling Software

Graphs Logic Input Space Syntax
Applied to
Applied Applied
to Source FSMs to

Specs DNF

Source Specs Source Models

Design Use cases Integ Input

Coverage

Given a set of test requirements TR for coverage criterion
C, a test set T satisfies C coverage if and only if for every
test requirement tr in TR, there is at least one test t in T
such that t satisfies tr

 Infeasible test requirements : test requirements that cannot be
satisfied
– No test case values exist that meet the test requirements
– Dead code
– Detection of infeasible test requirements is formally undecidable for most test
criteria
 Thus, 100% coverage is impossible in practice


Two Ways to Use Test Criteria
1. Directly generate test values to satisfy the criterion
often assumed by the research community most
obvious way to use criteria very hard without
automated tools

2. Generate test values externally and measure against
the criterion usually favored by industry
– sometimes misleading
– if tests do not reach 100% coverage, what does that
mean?
Test criteria are sometimes called metrics


Generators and Recognizers
 Generator : A procedure that automatically generates
values to satisfy a criterion
 Recognizer : A procedure that decides whether a given
set of test values satisfies a criterion

 Both problems are provably undecidable for most
criteria
 It is possible to recognize whether test cases satisfy a
criterion far more often than it is possible to generate
tests that satisfy the criterion
 Coverage analysis tools are quite plentiful


Comparing Criteria with Subsumption

 Criteria Subsumption : A test criterion C1 subsumes C2 if and
only if every set of test cases that satisfies criterion C1 also
satisfies C2

 Must be true for every set of test cases
 Example : If a test set has covered every branch in a program
(satisfied the branch criterion), then the test set is guaranteed to
also have covered every statement


Test Coverage Criteria
 Traditional software testing is expensive and labor-
intensive
 Formal coverage criteria are used to decide which test
inputs to use
 More likely that the tester will find problems
 Greater assurance that the software is of high quality
and reliability
 A goal or stopping rule for testing
 Criteria makes testing more efficient and effective

But how do we start to apply these ideas in practice?

OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Testing Levels Based on Test Process
Maturity
 Level 0 : There’s no difference between testing and
debugging
 Level 1 : The purpose of testing is to show correctness
 Level 2 : The purpose of testing is to show that the
software doesn’t work
 Level 3 : The purpose of testing is not to prove
anything specific, but to reduce the risk of using the
software
 Level 4 : Testing is a mental discipline that helps all IT
professionals develop higher quality software


Level 0 Thinking

 Testing is the same as debugging

 Does not distinguish between incorrect behavior and
mistakes in the program

 Does not help develop software that is reliable or safe

This is what we teach undergraduate CS majors


Level 1 Thinking
 Purpose is to show correctness
 Correctness is impossible to achieve
 What do we know if no failures?
– Good software or bad tests?
 Test engineers have no:
– Strict goal
– Real stopping rule
– Formal test technique
– Test managers are powerless

This is what hardware engineers often expect
76

Level 2 Thinking
 Purpose is to show failures

 Looking for failures is a negative activity

 Puts testers and developers into an adversarial
relationship

 What if there are no failures?
This describes most software companies.
How can we move to a team approach ??


Level 3 Thinking
 Testing can only show the presence of failures

 Whenever we use software, we incur some risk

 Risk may be small and consequences unimportant

 Risk may be great and the consequences catastrophic

 Testers and developers work together to reduce risk

This describes a few ―enlightened‖ software companies


Level 4 Thinking
A mental discipline that increases quality

 Testing is only one way to increase quality

 Test engineers can become technical leaders of the
project

 Primary responsibility to measure and improve
software quality

 Their expertise should help the developers
This is the way ―traditional‖ engineering works

OUTLINE

2. Why Test?






7. Summary

Cost of Late Testing
Assume $1000 unit cost, per fault, 100 faults

Software Engineering Institute; Carnegie Mellon University; Handbook CMU/SEI-96-HB-002


How to Improve Testing ?
 Testers need more and better software tools
 Testers need to adopt practices and techniques that lead
to more efficient and effective testing
– More education
– Different management organizational strategies
 Testing / QA teams need more technical expertise
– Developer expertise has been increasing dramatically
 Testing / QA teams need to specialize more
– This same trend happened for development in the 1990s


Four Roadblocks to Adoption
1. Lack of test education
Bill Gates says half of MS engineers are testers, programmers spend half their time testing
Number of UG CS programs in US that require testing ? 0
Number of MS CS programs in US that require testing ?
0
Number of UG testing classes in the US ? ~30
2. Necessity to change process
Adoption of many test techniques and tools require changes in development process
This is very expensive for most software companies
3. Usability of tools
Many testing tools require the user to know the underlying theory to use them
Do we need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive ?
Do we need to understand parsing and code generation to use a compiler ?

4. Weak and ineffective tools
Most test tools don’t do much – but most users do not realize they could be better
Few tools solve the key technical problem – generating test values automatically


Needs From Researchers
1. Isolate : Invent processes and techniques that isolate the
theory from most test practitioners
2. Disguise : Discover engineering techniques, standards and
frameworks that disguise the theory
3. Embed : Theoretical ideas in tools
4. Experiment : Demonstrate economic value of criteria-based
testing and ATDG (ROI)
– Which criteria should be used and when ?
– When does the extra effort pay off ?
5. Integrate high-end testing with development


Needs From Educators
1. Disguise theory from engineers in classes
2. Omit theory when it is not needed
3. Restructure curriculum to teach more than test design and
theory
– Test automation
– Test evaluation
– Human-based testing
– Test-driven development


Changes in Practice
1. Reorganize test and QA teams to make effective use of
individual abilities
– One math-head can support many testers
2. Retrain test and QA teams
– Use a process like MDTD
– Learn more testing concepts
3. Encourage researchers to embed and isolate
– We are very responsive to research grants
4. Get involved in curricular design efforts through industrial
advisory boards


Future of Software Testing
1. Increased specialization in testing teams will lead to
more efficient and effective testing
2. Testing and QA teams will have more technical
expertise
3. Developers will have more knowledge about testing
and motivation to test better
4. Agile processes put testing first—putting pressure on
both testers and developers to test better
5. Testing and security are starting to merge
6. We will develop new ways to test connections within
software-based systems


Advantages of Criteria-Based
Test Design
 Criteria maximize the ―bang for the buck‖
– Fewer tests that are more effective at finding faults
 Comprehensive test set with minimal overlap
 Traceability from software artifacts to tests
– The ―why‖ for each test is answered
– Built-in support for regression testing
 A ―stopping rule‖ for testing—advance knowledge of how many
tests are needed
 Natural to automate


Open Questions
 Which criteria work best on embedded, highly reliable software?
– Which software structure to use?
 How can we best automate this testing with robust tools?
– Deriving the software structure
– Constructing the test requirements
– Creating values from test requirements
– Creating full test scripts
– Solution to the ―mapping problem‖
 Empirical validation
 Technology transition
 Application to new domains


Criteria Summary
• Many companies still use “monkey testing”
• A human sits at the keyboard, wiggles the mouse and
bangs the keyboard
• No automation
• Minimal training required
• Some companies automate human-designed tests
• But companies that also use automation and criteria-
based testing

Save money
Find more faults
Build better software


Summary of Chapter 1’s New Ideas
 Why do we test – to reduce the risk of using the
software
 Four types of test activities – test design, automation,
execution and evaluation
 Software terms – faults, failures, the RIP model,
observability and controllability
 Four structures – test requirements and criteria
 Test process maturity levels – level 4 is a mental
discipline that improves the quality of the software

Earlier and better testing can empower the test
manager

Software Testing Basics

More Related Content

What's hot (19)

Similar to Software Testing Basics (20)

Software Testing Basics