(With the risk of telling you what you already know.)

I think in Software Engineering literature articles can be found on the topic of “Tautology Testing”. I even encountered approaches based upon it: e.g. Tautology Based Development (TBD) or Tautology Test Driven Development (TTDD)?!

A tautology test asserts that the code does what the code does?! I have my doubts. I have difficulty appreciating tautology tests except for maybe some really specialized cases. For normal business applications it sounds to me like overtesting and therefore a waste of money. Money that might be spend on other SQA activities like static testing to gain confidence in the code. How to avoid it? Maybe Injection Testing? See here for some info. My personal approach is try to prevent it and when I do see it throw it out.

Although I do test the SW I write before I throw it over the proverbial wall (normally unit tests and an integration test, preferably in a representative test environment), I prefer/demand other people to test it as well. It won’t be first time that I keep reading over my own mistake and simply fail see it. IMO software testing should provide an objective and therefore independent view of the quality of the SW; the more other people test your code the better.

Testing is an engineering discipline in its own right. Years ago I hired an independent test consultant from a company specialized in quality. The model used was V2M2 This was a real eye-opener for me and I think it’s safe to say the project benefited a lot from it. I especially liked the (good) test coverage and traceability to the requirements. Whenever possible I follow this approach, i.e. outsource the testing as much as possible.

Cheers
Harry

In reply to Re: How does one avoid tautologies in testing? by dHarry
in thread How does one avoid tautologies in testing? by ELISHEVA

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