Thursday, September 07, 2006

Unofficial Software Testing Terminology

These are terms I've heard used informally to describe testing activities and results. I used one of them today and the other tester looked at me funny. So, in the interest of clarity, I present those terms. Please don't post comments arguing precise definitions because if you do that you are taking this way too seriously.

Puked. The test returned invalid results.

Shit and died. The test returned non-sensical results and then crashed. Not to be confused with ate shit and died where you inject a function with a bad parameter and it fails ungracefully.

Burped. The tested functioned paused inexplicably.

Pathological. Something the user could do but was unlikely to. Tests exploring this are called "pathological tests". Useful for determining if overwhelmed software stops gracefully. Not to be confused with psychotic.

'Caced. Pronounced "cacked". Synonym to puked. Don't know the source of the word; Ipecac (a vomit-inducer) maybe?

Lost It's Mind. The code being tested or the test itself worked OK first few iterations and then started producing non-sensical results. Alternately, code that returns values that are far removed from what is expected at any time.

In a Coma. A function or application that freezes but doesn't crash; in other words, it's in a persistent vegetative state.

Psychotic. A function or code that fails non-sensically, but differently, each time tested. Also known as psychopath.

There are others ...

No comments: