A Self‐Assessment Test
Glenford J. Myers, Tom Badgett, Corey Sandler · 2012
Software testing is a process, or a series of processes, designed to make sure computer code does what it was designed to do and, conversely, that it does not do anything unintended. Software should be predictable and consistent, presenting no surprises to users. Despite the plethora of software testing tomes available on the market today, many developers seem to have an attitude that is counter to extensive testing. Better development tools, pretested GUIs, and the pressure of tight deadlines in an ever more complex development environment can lead to avoidance of all but the most obvious testing protocols. Whereas low-level impacts of bugs may only inconvenience the end user, the worst impacts can result in large financial loses, or even cause harm to people. This chapter introduces the specific procedures that can help designers, developers, and project managers better understand the value of comprehensive testing, and provide guidelines to help them achieve required testing goals. This chapter presents a short self-assessment exam where readers are required to write a set of test cases — specific sets of data — to test properly a relatively simple program.