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Tetris Is Hard To Test

Posted by Soulskill on from the deceptive-tetrominomic-compexity dept.

New submitter JackDW writes: Tetris is one of the best-known computer games ever made. It's easy to play but hard to master, and it's based on a NP-hard problem. But that's not all that's difficult about it. Though it's simple enough to be implemented in one line of BBC BASIC, it's complex enough to be really hard to thoroughly test.

It may seem like you can test everything in Tetris just by playing it for a few minutes, but this is very unlikely! As I explain in this article, the game is filled with special cases that rarely occur in normal play, and these can only be easily found with the help of a coverage tool.

3 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Nice advertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From a company promoting automated WCET analysis. Hah!

    1. Re:Nice advertisement by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Normal users don't test all cases of a game.

      Maybe not, but as soon as you tell yourself, "I don't need to test this code, a normal user will never get to it;" you can be certain that after saying that, a user will find a way to break it. The Gods of Eternity will laugh at you.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Nonsense -- make your own test suite by rs1n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would you only test your code via normal use? Why wouldn't you just create a test suite that actually tests all the scenarios? In the case of tetris, you can simply force a sequence of pieces that will enable you to reach the scenarios described in the article. Or you can even start the game with a pre-made board.

    Has slashdot really become a means for tech companies to inject free advertisement by a simple blog post made to look like real journalism?