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Date:	Sat, 3 Jan 2004 10:03:40 PST8
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	"SCOUG Programming SIG" <scoug-programming@scoug.com > , "osFree@yahoogroups.com" <osFree@yahoogroups.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: Re: [osFree] QA equals testing, Part One:Detection

Content Type: text/plain

Dale Erwin writes:
"EXPECTED to give UNEXPECTED results ????"

Yes. You expect something. You get something else. You get
something when you didn't expect it, thus unexpected.

By convention the exhaustive true/false proof only produces
all true instances, one or more. It could just as easily and
separately produce all false instances. This proof process
then works as advertised, i.e. exhaustively. This should put to
rest any assertions of the impossibility to perform exhaustive
testing and thus the need for multiple alpha, beta, and other
releases as well as corresponding "testers".

However, the ability to automate the testing process, to
automatically generate all test cases, i.e. enumerated sets of
test data, does nothing to automate the validation process.
This process, a human one, a manual one, we need to detect
errors: false instances in true results and true instances in
false results. Unless the guy's theorem and proof on proving
correctness get invalidated we can't automate the validation
process. We can only insure that we have all the possible
results.

We need then to significantly reduce the number of test
cases, i.e. test instances, to a necessary and sufficient number
representing all possible test results. Fortunately we
developed such methods in testing long before the advent of
logic programming. We can use these methods as part of the
process of generating test data instances to significantly
reduce the volume of results we need to validate.

In truth because we have automated four of the five stages
of the SDP, essentially reducing their current time a
millionfold, this leaves us with more time to do validation...and
still have some left over: a net productivity plus.

While we cannot assume error-free validation, as to err is
human in reading as well as writing, we have all the possible
results with all the possible errors. Assuming then that we
have the skill to detect at least some if not all of the errors,
we then go on to error correction, the second part of this
thread.

Thank you for this lead in.

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