"Test Plan"
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
Test Plan .... oh! the pain, big list of test senarios that says 1. do this 2. do that 3. check this etc etc Take my advice, find your boss, beat him to a pulp and then demand he repeats the word "agile" a million times ... such a soothing word ... "agile" Regards Ray "Je Suis Mort De Rire" Blogging @ Keratoconus Watch
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
A test plan is simply that: a plan for how you are going to test your application. The purpose of a test plan is to describe how you are going to verify that your application performs according to its specification. This description is used by others to help assure them of the results. A basic test plan answers two questions: "How are you going to test the application?" and "What are the individual tests?" The 'how' answer describes your methodology. What resources do you need to perform testing (machines, networks, test personnel, and so on)? What types of tests are you performing (simulated loading, user scenarios, boundary conditions, etc.)? This is the qualitative part of the test plan. The 'what' answer is the quantitative part of the test plan. Enumerate specific tests and required results. Ideally, each test can be linked to one or more requirements in your specification. Note the assumption here: you have a written specification that describes, in detail, the required characteristics for your application.
Software Zen:
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
S.R. Tiruvan wrote:
What are they?
You know how when you write code, it comes out perfect, and meets all the known requirements as well as most of the unknown ones? Well sad to say, there are people out there calling themselves programmers whose output is far short of ideal. And so they need to spend time testing it afterwards, to flush out all those areas in which it falls short. A test plan is just a documented routine, covering how all important areas are to be tested - scenarios, inputs, expected outputs, etc.
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
It is an overall plan for testing. A document that anyone coming into the project can read and understand. It makes sure that your tests cover all aspects of the site. Unit, functional and performance/load tests. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry!
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
A Test Plan is just that. A plan on how to test a particular software project. This doc may contain the following: - Test cases/suites that need to be written. - Unit tests to write. - Test resources needed such as tools, people, etc. - Test schedule. - Perhaps an acceptance test plan to "validate" the software requirements before release. A test plan is usually written based off the requirements docs. It is written before development begins. Consult the almighty wikipedia for more detail... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_plan[^]
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
The two most important aspects of test plans are: 1) To ensure you are fully testing the application and not just the most common pattern of usage. (This is the single biggest problem with testing--developers have a tendency to test to their perception of the specification, not to how users would actually use the software.) 2) To ensure that regression tests will match the original tests. With this in mind, understand that good test plans are iterative; you should enhance them as you discover new usages and bugs. Another aspect of test plans is that it allows the tester to read the same specification as the developer and independently determine what the behavior should be. Of course, this means that bad specs will result in test plans that bear little resemblence to the software being written. Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Test Plan .... oh! the pain, big list of test senarios that says 1. do this 2. do that 3. check this etc etc Take my advice, find your boss, beat him to a pulp and then demand he repeats the word "agile" a million times ... such a soothing word ... "agile" Regards Ray "Je Suis Mort De Rire" Blogging @ Keratoconus Watch
Hmmm, am I seeing this again!!?? Agile doesnt mean you can do whatever you want without any planning. In agile, the first thing, even before you start writing the test is to have a test plan. Without the test plan, how are you going to write your tests? Without a failing test, how are you going to write your code? ohh well, buzzwords have never solved any real issues. :-) salim
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Hmmm, am I seeing this again!!?? Agile doesnt mean you can do whatever you want without any planning. In agile, the first thing, even before you start writing the test is to have a test plan. Without the test plan, how are you going to write your tests? Without a failing test, how are you going to write your code? ohh well, buzzwords have never solved any real issues. :-) salim
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
Funny, I didn't think that those two words could go together in the same sentence. ;P Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] When I want privacy, I'll close the bathroom door. [Stan Shannon] NOTED: The government now loses money on each penny it produces thanks to the soaring price of zinc -- the main component of the copper-coated coins. The cost of the metals in a penny rose to 0.8 cents last week, and the government spends at least another 0.6 cents to mint each one-cent coin. [The New York Times]
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
S.R. Tiruvan wrote:
I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it.
How long have you been a developer? I hope not long, otherwise it is very sad/worrying that you don't know what a test-plan is. Unless your opening statement was intended to be humorous. Have a read of this to get you started[^] Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
Software QA is a separate discipline in and of itself, with a host of talents and skills required in order to do it properly. If someone asks you to just throw together a test plan then that's what you're going to get - thrown together results. You should tell your boss to either get serious and bring in professionals or just let your customers find the bugs for you like everyone else and stop wasting the developers' time. Trying to get programmers to do the testing is the absolute shortest and most guaranteed path to a buggy release. First, programmers aren't trained QA professionals, so you have amatuers doing your quality control. Lovely. More importantly, however, is that programmers don't give a rat's rear end about testing. They consider it an inconvenience and unwanted imposition that takes them away from coding. They will therefore do everything within their power to get the job off of their desks as quickly and with as little effort as possible. Guess how many bugs will therefore make it to the customer? And yet, ignoring these facts, most companies nonetheless ask their programmers to do the testing. Even if you could get programmers to take testing seriously (in fairness, it's a different job description and not what they were hired for), then consider this. If they missed in in analysis, missed it in design and missed it in implementation, what idiot thinks that the programmers will suddenly, magically, catch it in testing? The overwhelming majority of companies simply don't take testing seriously, and it just blows my mind. "Gosh, why should we spend money hiring professionals to test our products? I mean, it's not like quality is all that important." And we wonder why most software quality is crap? Macromedia / Adobe, are you listening? Didn't think so. Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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Software QA is a separate discipline in and of itself, with a host of talents and skills required in order to do it properly. If someone asks you to just throw together a test plan then that's what you're going to get - thrown together results. You should tell your boss to either get serious and bring in professionals or just let your customers find the bugs for you like everyone else and stop wasting the developers' time. Trying to get programmers to do the testing is the absolute shortest and most guaranteed path to a buggy release. First, programmers aren't trained QA professionals, so you have amatuers doing your quality control. Lovely. More importantly, however, is that programmers don't give a rat's rear end about testing. They consider it an inconvenience and unwanted imposition that takes them away from coding. They will therefore do everything within their power to get the job off of their desks as quickly and with as little effort as possible. Guess how many bugs will therefore make it to the customer? And yet, ignoring these facts, most companies nonetheless ask their programmers to do the testing. Even if you could get programmers to take testing seriously (in fairness, it's a different job description and not what they were hired for), then consider this. If they missed in in analysis, missed it in design and missed it in implementation, what idiot thinks that the programmers will suddenly, magically, catch it in testing? The overwhelming majority of companies simply don't take testing seriously, and it just blows my mind. "Gosh, why should we spend money hiring professionals to test our products? I mean, it's not like quality is all that important." And we wonder why most software quality is crap? Macromedia / Adobe, are you listening? Didn't think so. Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
And we wonder why most software quality is crap?
Sounds familiar :) You mean like this?[^] led mike
led mike wrote:
You mean like this?[^]
Exactly like this! :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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Hmmm, am I seeing this again!!?? Agile doesnt mean you can do whatever you want without any planning. In agile, the first thing, even before you start writing the test is to have a test plan. Without the test plan, how are you going to write your tests? Without a failing test, how are you going to write your code? ohh well, buzzwords have never solved any real issues. :-) salim
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What are they? I've written a web application and tested in with manual inputs. Then my boss comes up and says we need to develop "Test Plans" for the system. I am guessing he's using a lingo that exists but am not familiar with it. Please let me know. Thanks!
http://dictionary.reference.com/[^] Test 1. A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something; a trial: a test of one's eyesight; subjecting a hypothesis to a test; a test of an athlete's endurance. 2. A series of questions, problems, or physical responses designed to determine knowledge, intelligence, or ability. 3. A basis for evaluation or judgment: “A test of democratic government is how Congress and the president work together” (Haynes Johnson). 4. Chemistry. 1. A physical or chemical change by which a substance may be detected or its properties ascertained. 2. A reagent used to cause or promote such a change. 3. A positive result obtained. 5. A cupel. Plan 1. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective: a plan of attack. 2. A proposed or tentative project or course of action: had no plans for the evening. 3. A systematic arrangement of elements or important parts; a configuration or outline: a seating plan; the plan of a story. 4. A drawing or diagram made to scale showing the structure or arrangement of something. 5. In perspective rendering, one of several imaginary planes perpendicular to the line of vision between the viewer and the object being depicted. 6. A program or policy stipulating a service or benefit: a pension plan. ---------- There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them. - Alexander Ledru-Rollin
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S.R. Tiruvan wrote:
What are they?
You know how when you write code, it comes out perfect, and meets all the known requirements as well as most of the unknown ones? Well sad to say, there are people out there calling themselves programmers whose output is far short of ideal. And so they need to spend time testing it afterwards, to flush out all those areas in which it falls short. A test plan is just a documented routine, covering how all important areas are to be tested - scenarios, inputs, expected outputs, etc.
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Thank god we don't need to tset, eh Shog9 from outer space. regards, Paul Watson Ireland Feed Henry!
eh, stop bugging me about it, give it a couple of days, see what happens.
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Hmmm, am I seeing this again!!?? Agile doesnt mean you can do whatever you want without any planning. In agile, the first thing, even before you start writing the test is to have a test plan. Without the test plan, how are you going to write your tests? Without a failing test, how are you going to write your code? ohh well, buzzwords have never solved any real issues. :-) salim
Who said _anything_ about throwing out testing ? ... not me ... Test Plans to me usually imply "big end of project testing", which in the same vein as "big up front design" is a waste of time, all I was advocating was "Test Driven Development". I usually find Test Plans are a symptom of blind ISO etc compliance rather than a desire to ensure quality of the product. Ensuring the quality of the product definitely does not imply Test Plans (IMHO), your unit tests and acceptance tests are _all_ the specification you. A test plan is a document which to paraphrase Mary Poppendieck adds no Customer Value whatsoever. Concentrate on writing Unit Tests derived from code as you go and Acceptance Tests derived from User Stories, and recycle the test plans 'cos thats all its good for. Regards Ray "Je Suis Mort De Rire" Blogging @ Keratoconus Watch