Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

The second realm of testing: standing on top of Bug

Is the value of testing just discovering Bug? Through the introduction of the second realm of "standing above Bug" testing, I hope it can help readers correctly understand what the real value of testing is and how to operate it in practical work to reflect these values. Different ideas will lead testers to move forward in different directions. "standing on Bug" can broaden testers' horizons, find more test chains that can fully reflect the value of testing, and let testers make greater contributions to the success of the project, thus bringing a wider range of testing success.

The value of testing is more than just discovering Bug

When it comes to testing, people immediately think of Bug. Is the test just to find Bug? This is a question worthy of our consideration.

Starting from the most basic definition of software testing, J. Myers mentioned in his book "the Art of Software testing" in 1979: the purpose of software testing is to discover Bug as soon as possible. A successful test is to find a test of Bug that has not been found so far.

In short, the purpose of testing is to discover Bug, and all the work done by testing revolves around Bug, as shown in figure 2-8. The idea that the test finds that the more Bug there is, the prouder the tester is and the more successful he or she is, has been almost ingrained in our hearts. Does the test really have nothing to do but find out that Bug?

The tester was happy to find a lot of Bug, but the boss must not be happy. It is obvious that in order to solve these Bug, he will have to pay more costs, including the salaries of developers and testers, and, more seriously, may affect the time to market of the product. Shopping malls are like a battlefield, time is money, time can bring more market space to products and win more profits for enterprises. Understanding this business knowledge can help us do the right thing and do the right thing. After realizing this, I believe that testing friends will no longer worry about the release of a version of Bug that has not been resolved. Testers should step out of the circle of complacency when only discovering Bug, see the project as a whole, and test what can be done from the company's point of view. Only when the project is successful can the company make a profit and finally achieve the win-win goal of both the employee and the company.

Quality, cost and time are the three elements of project management. They are like a tripod, as stable as Mount Tai, that is, good quality, low cost and short construction period, such projects are of course not available to project managers. But they exist paradoxically, and visually, they look like an equilateral triangle, as shown in figure 2-9. If any one of these elements is not handled properly, the triangular relationship of the three elements will become unstable, which will bring risks to the success of the project.

The software testing team is one of the members of the whole project team, checking the software quality and discovering Bug as early as possible. This is also the foundation of software testing and the place where quality can contribute to the project. So what and how can testing be done in terms of cost and time control? That is, how the above-mentioned tests match the success of the project to do the right thing and do the right thing.

Tips:

Do the right thing and do the right thing

The starting point of doing the right thing is to maximize the interests of the enterprise, not to do things from the standpoint of individuals and small groups, nor to be afraid of taking responsibility and passing things on to others. It requires us to choose among many possibilities to identify what is right and what is the most direct and feasible way of doing things, and to maximize the efficiency of the enterprise as the standard of doing things.

To do things correctly is to drive people who do specific things how to do things in accordance with the advice of leaders, without considering whether it is in line with the principle of maximizing the efficiency of the enterprise.

For testing, the right thing to do is to focus on testing common functions (modules) from the user's point of view, while avoiding excessive testing of unused functions, wasting costs, including manpower and time investment. To do things correctly is to use reasonable and comprehensive testing methods to verify whether the software meets the needs of users, and not to be verified by illegal operations or back doors that users simply cannot use. The following is about the 2-8 principle of software testing, through this 2-8 principle, we can maximize the benefit of software testing in the application of project cost and time.

To cite an example that we often encounter in our daily life, for example, we often see advertisements that say, how powerful and rich the functions of mobile phone software are now, but do users use each function with the same frequency? The answer is no. This leads to the 2-8 principle of focusing on the scope of software testing, that is, 80% of the effort should be focused on testing 20% of the key functions. From the user's point of view, it's worth it, and it needs to be done.

First of all, analyze which functions are the core and important functions for users in our software system, and then arrange appropriate test engineers to be responsible for these modules. The designed test scheme and use cases are reviewed, and the test execution process is tracked. Every time a software release is released, regression tests are performed on this part of the code even if it is not changed (this kind of regression requires strategies and methods) because they are too important to allow errors.

The following are the details of the 2-8 principles of software testing.

1.80% of errors are caused by 20% of modules

Simple and easy modules or functions rarely introduce too much Bug, while some key modules with complex logic tend to cause 80% errors in the system. Only when the key modules are stable, can the whole system be truly robust and stable.

For testing, this principle is to stand from the user's point of view (rather than the perspective of R & D and implementation), correctly select important functional modules as the focus of testing, and do not deviate from the direction.

2.80% of testing costs are spent on 20% of software modules.

When designing test cases, the number of Nissan use cases is often used to measure the work of engineers. The number of use cases is related to the demand, and the requirement description that affects the software architecture design is often less. In this case, the design of test cases especially needs to be considered together with the outline design and detailed design of the software. If use case designers copy a large number of use cases and modify individual words in order to achieve the number of use cases, without really designing efficient test cases, then using such an inefficient or even more number of use cases to deal with complex 20% core modules will inevitably lead to some key Bug not being found in the test execution process.

3.80% of testing time is spent on 20% of software modules

For complex modules, early test design and thinking may take a lot of time, and the number of use cases produced may not be large. For complex systems, especially for brand-new systems, we must be willing to invest sufficient time to give priority to the design. The shorter the time of the early scheme and use case design, the greater the risk in the later stage.

After the project has reached a certain stage, increasing manpower does not necessarily solve the problem of shortening time. For example, if the core module is complex and the test starts later in the project, it is common to add people because there is a lot of Bug and the project needs a short time to stabilize the version. However, recruits need a period of familiarity and, if necessary, veterans to bring them, which in itself will affect the work of veterans. In addition, some performance testing and automated testing work will not be better until the version is stable.

This article is excerpted from the book "Soul of Software testing: core Test Design (2nd Edition)"

By Xiao Liqiong

Published by Electronic Industry Press

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