Hardware take on software testing.

Mon Jun 9 05:24:42 EDT 2003

Terence Way wrote:
 > On Fri, 06 Jun 2003 09:50:41 -0400, Paddy McCarthy wrote:
 >
 >
 >> If software were tested like hardware...
 >>
 >
 > What you're describing sounds a lot like IBM's Cleanroom: which as I
 > recall had two broad principles: 1. Specify everything and hammer out
 > flaws in review meetings; and 2. Rigorously track bugs (counted from
 > the first time a file is compiled!), using random test data that
 > matches the expected usage.
Ahah!
Its nice to get more evidence of these types of practices having been tried.
 > Despite this, I wonder if the two can be combined: XP with cleanroom
 > testing, resulting in peer-reviewed well-specified software with a
 > MTTF quality metric.  Hrmm.
Not sure on MTTF, but some set of metrics that allow you to at least
compare two separate developments.

- Paddy.