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How Can I Make Testing Software More Stimulating?
An anonymous reader writes "I like writing software. In fact, I revel in it. However, one thing has always kept me back from being able to write the best software I possibly can: testing. I consider testing to be the absolute bane of my existence. It is so boring and un-stimulating that I usually skip it entirely, pass the testing off to someone else, or even worse, if I absolutely have to test, I do a very poor job at it. I know I'm not that lazy, as I can spend hours on end writing software, but there's something about testing that makes my mind constantly want to wander off and think about something else. Does anyone have any tips on how I can make non-automated testing a little bit more stimulating so I can at least begin to form a habit of doing so?"
just imagine if you don't test giant sharks with lasers will attack you.. with that stimulate you enough?
Personally I feel that the dev should never do the testing of their own code as they are too close to the subject to test every angle.
:P
Sorry this doesn't answer you question
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But you should be writing the test as you write the code
Add porn
Wear a different hat each day.
Does anyone have any tips on how I can make non-automated testing a little bit more stimulating so I can at least begin to form a habit of doing so?
No, I don't. I strongly think you're directing your effort the wrong way, and duplicating work if you're spending too much time on non-automated testing.
Software Engineers are not good at poking holes in their own work, so you should have someone else doing the bulk of that kind of testing anyway. You obviously need to do some cursory testing to avoid wasting someone else's time, but there are much better ways of directing your testing effort.
Focus on developing unit tests both before and during the development effort. Avoid developing your unit tests after writing the code though - your mind will be tainted with your approach, and you'll miss the obvious stuff. Not only do unit tests reveal bugs, the act of writing them will also help you get interfaces right, and help ensure a better overall design for your code.
Clearly there aren't enough bugs in the software you are testing. As an experienced C programmer I can help fix this problem...
http://michaelsmith.id.au
First off, don't do non-automated testing. It's unnecessary. Do Behavior Driven Development with Cucumber http://cukes.info./ It's massively more fun than unit testing.
Have you given Test Driven Development and NUnit a try? If you haven't heard of these things or taken one of the TDD frameworks out for a test drive then you owe it to yourself to invest some time. The software industry in general and the .NET community in particular is moving towards automated unit testing and Continuous Integration. You should get on this train too.
Imagine that the guy who wrote the code is the royal, snobbish jerk who always thinks his code is better than anything else. Realize that, at some point, he's going to make a change that will change the way the component behaves, and will yet again break your code that uses that component. Don't let him get away with it. Let your fingers pound as you write code to check for the smallest fault. Let your lips curl in a snarl as you feed it poisoned data. Relish in the thought that you can catch him in every slightest mistake. Think of all those things that might not think to catch in the future. Not just the important stuff that defines the role of the component, but those little things that some people might call "implementation details".
Also remember that he's the same jerk who wrote those unit tests that screwed you over all those times. Don't just pay it back; pay it forward.
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Instant Feedback
A suite of at least 50 tests takes less than a second to run.
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Coffee Break
The suite takes between 5 and 15 minutes to run.
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Take a Walk
The suite takes between 15 and 60 minutes to run.
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Take a Nap
The suite takes between 1 and 5 hours to run.
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Take a Vacation
The suite takes at least 3 days to run.
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Coming soon!
Anticipation
One test in a suite of at least 10 is slow, and all the rest pass.
Time
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Night Shift
Make a failing suite pass between midnight and 5am.
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Punctuality
Make a failing suite pass at 9am (give or take a minute).
Failure
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Complete Failure
All tests in a suite of 50 to 999 fail.
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Epic Fail
All tests in a suite of at least 1,000 fail.
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Minor Letdown
All tests in a suite of 10 to 99 pass...except the last.
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Major Letdown
All tests in a suite of at least 100 pass...except the last.
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Happy Ending
All tests in a suite of at least 10 fail...except the last.
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Coming soon!
Heisenbug
Make a passing suite fail without changing anything.
Errors
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Sausage Fingers
Cause at least 2 distinct syntax errors in a single run.
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To Understand Recursion
Exceed the maximum recursion depth.
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Cause all tests in a suite of at least 50 to fail with a single error.
Size
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My God, It’s Full of Dots
The suite has at least 2,001 passing tests.
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OCD
Run the suite at least 5 times in the spa
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Wear a different hat each day.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
"It is so boring and un-stimulating that I usually skip it entirely, pass the testing off to someone else, or even worse, if I absolutely have to test, I do a very poor job at it."
Which sums up why software is so shitty today. I seriously hope that you don't write software for the areospace industry because I don't feel like falling out of the sky because you were too bored to test your code.
Every job has its boring moments, testing your code is one of those things that programmers must do. Should do, it encourages discipline and discipline is what makes good code. You can automate the testing to some degree but at some point you've got to poke it and prod it yourself because computers are stupider than even we are. If you can't hack that, find a different line of work.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
I do software QA for a living. And if you're not a tester, don't try to be. It's your job to write code that meets spec, runs clean, is efficient and effective. Write it well. Write it secure. Write it to handle errors from data, users, networks, etc. Double check that you validate input. Make sure it doesn't leak memory. Write good unit tests. Test it enough to make sure it works. Then give it to a tester.
Good software testers are a different breed. They are a sceptical, picky, pedantic, detail oriented bunch who take new code as a personal challenge to find the inevitable bugs. They will test your code a dozen different ways you would never think of. They will find bugs that could not possibly exist. They don't care that your shiney new whistle or bell will be the next big thing that will make you all rich. They care that it doesn't barf when you pass it a string with more than 256 characters. Including special characters. In German. Or Japanese. They care that when it's been running for 12 days straight with automated stuff beating on it that the memory usage hasn't ballooned. They care how it deals with data files 10 times larger than you say it should handle, or runs on a machine with half the ram it should have, or handles twice the workload it should - because somewhere out there is a user who will ask it to. They will chew it up, spit it out, and ask you to fix it. Then they will do it all again.
Testers are a strange bunch, and good ones are hard to find. Find some good ones and cultivate them. They are a lot cheaper than a ticked off client.
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
I used to dislike testing until I learn how to implement code designed to be tested. Use a dependency injection frame work (that will keep you busy for a while) and write testable code. Writing elegant, readable code which scalable and testable is not an easy or boring task. If you can not automate the tests, you are probably do something wrong.
M0571y H@rml355.
Actually it's just the opposite. It's like working in a candy factory and quickly getting completely bored/sick of the candy. I did one site where we were having problems with certain videos in different browsers and I swear to God that there was one clip of some really hot anal action that I got *really* sick of. After about the 3rd time I would watch about 5 seconds of it, see if the problem was manifesting, and then be back in the editor.
Now I watch whale documentaries to get my jollies. ... Wait! What?
Do you enjoy finding the weak points in things? Do you use new devices, maps, etc without reading the instructions because you just think you should just know how they should work? Do you find that alarm bells go off in your head when you read a phrase that could possibly interpreted in more than one way? Do you often use things in ways that they were never intended yet those ways seem the most logical to you? Do you possess powers of intuition that lead you unforseen vulnerabilities? Do you find the needle in the haystack? Coding isn't inherently more interesting than testing. Anyway, if you identify with any of these phrases, you can apply it to testing...
Unit tests should excercise the corner cases in your code. If you know what they are, write tests for them.
QA testing should break all design assumptions about how the software should be used. Having the programmer sitting there telling the QA guy what to click on (and I've seen that far too often) invalidates that. The most useful bugs are the ones where the QA guy says "I did what I thought would get the job done, and instead it formatted my hard drive", leaving the dev to sputter "but, but, you're not supposed to do that". Given enough users, every possible "stupid" thing you can do with your software will be done in the field, and you really want to know that you will at least fail safely in all those "but that's not how you're supposed to do it" cases.
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