Can The Modeller Control The View?

One of the reasons that software testing is challenging, both intellectually and practically, is that the information about the state of the system under test is partial. It's part of the testing role to formulate a model (or, more usually, a cloud of overlapping, incomplete and contradictory models) that represent our best view of the system at any given time and we've developed a collection of monochrome boxes that reflect the idea that access to source code can help make sense of it. But even that doesn't equate to an understanding of the model that the software has when it operates. For example:

The tester may not follow the source code (completely).
External libraries may implement a substantial part of the functionality but appear minimally in the source.
Interactions with other layers, such as the operating system for file operations, will form part of the model without being part of the codebase.
If the source code is compiled, it may be optimised in ways that contradict the tester's understanding.

And the tester isn't the only person without a clear idea of the system's take on the world. Some end users would find value in understanding the software states and how they are transitioned. Even developers would welcome a way to see the bigger picture easily when they're in code they don't modify often.

An aside. A few weeks ago, during heavy rain, I heard a rapid and repetitive thudding on our flat kitchen roof. I assumed was a drip and when the rain had stopped I got up and had a look. There were two obvious candidates: a join in the guttering between us and next door and a TV aerial pointing slightly below the horizontal. The weather was dry but I know about soak testing, so I poured a bucket of water over the aerial and another into the guttering which prompted water droplets forming on the joint and falling in a rhythmic way.

I'm no guttering expert (although as a student I once got mistaken for a tramp; that's a different kind of gutter) but I could see that a clip on a plastic band that applied pressure to the two pipes had cracked, opening up the seal. I squirted some sealant into the joint and forced the clip shut.

It broke.

After cursing for a while, I drilled through the band and the guttering, put a bolt through the hole and tightened a nut onto it. Pouring more water in showed no leak so I put some grease on the nut and bolt to waterproof them for the future me revisting the cheap and cheerful repair and made myself a nice cup of tea.

And the point of this DIY yarn? While I was on the roof it occurred to me that my model of the system I was testing and working with was very close to being the system itself. I can touch or visualise the entire thing easily. Sure, there are levels beyond my comprehension - I don't understand the chemical or physical properties of the materials used to manufacture the guttering, the nut and bolt or the clip but I have general experience of plastics, metals and so on that covers enough of that to give me what I need.

Even considering the wider systems in which this is a small component, I could initially see that there were multiple candidates for the source of the drip and latterly recognise that when it gets wet the bolt might rust which would make further maintenance more difficult.

That's not to suggest that all software can be reduced to the complexity of a joint between two half-pipes or that all physical things can be analysed simply by looking and interacting - I wouldn't have a chance with the engine in my car, for example. But, it is the case that the more of the underlying thing that can be inspected, the less effort is required to create the initial models and the more time can be spent on refining and testing them.

So I'm going to be giving myself some time to think what we can do to make the model the software I'm testing has of its state - or, more realistically, the sub-models it has of the bits of state of interest at any given time - more available and useful to the testers and other users.

For the record, I noted down my initial thoughts while I was writing this:

when reporting derived metrics the raw data should be available too,
logging should be as complete as possible or (to some sensible level) complete logging should be available,
log time stamps from different components should be in step,
error and warning messages should be precise, clear and informative,
similar operations on the model should be similar operations in the view,
similar structures (semantically and/or physically) should have similar realisations in the product,
naming conventions should be consistent and transparent from the UI through the variables in the code to the model itself,
any extra reporting must be trustworthy, and the trust should be economic to establish, or else we'll have an additional test burden.

These seem to be concerned with consistency and testability. Where else should I be looking?
Image: http://flic.kr/p/bpTUr

Comments

Meet Me Halfway?

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "Stop answering my questions with questions." Sure, I can do that. In return, please stop asking me questions so open to interpretation that any answ...

The Best Programmer Dan Knows

I was pairing with my friend Vernon at work last week, on a tool I've been developing. He was smiling broadly as I talked him through what I'd done because we've been here before. The tool facilitates a task that's time-consuming, inefficient, error-prone, tiresome, and important to get right. Vern knows that those kinds of factors trigger me to change or build something, and that's why he was struggling not to laugh out loud. He held himself together and asked a bunch of sensible questions about the need, the desired outcome, and the approach I'd taken. Then he mentioned a talk by Daniel Terhorst-North, called The Best Programmer I Know, and said that much of it paralleled what he sees me doing. It was my turn to laugh then, because I am not a good programmer, and I thought he knew that already. What I do accept, though, is that I am focussed on the value that programs can give, and getting some of that value as early as possible. He sent me a link to the ta...

Can Code, Can't Code, Is Useful

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "If testers can’t code, they’re of no use to us" My first reaction is to wonder what you expect from your testers. I am immediately interested ...

Beginning Sketchnoting

In September 2017 I attended Ian Johnson 's visual note-taking workshop at DDD East Anglia . For the rest of the day I made sketchnotes, including during Karo Stoltzenburg 's talk on exploratory testing for developers (sketch below), and since then I've been doing it on a regular basis. Karo recently asked whether I'd do a Team Eating (the Linguamatics brown bag lunch thing) on sketchnoting. I did, and this post captures some of what I said. Beginning sketchnoting, then. There's two sides to that: I still regard myself as a beginner at it, and today I'll give you some encouragement and some tips based on my experience, to begin sketchnoting for yourselves. I spend an enormous amount of time in situations where I find it helpful to take notes: testing, talking to colleagues about a problem, reading, 1-1 meetings, project meetings, workshops, conferences, and, and, and, and I could go on. I've long been interested in the approaches I've evol...

Don't Know? Find Out!

In What We Know We Don't Know , Hillel Wayne crisply summarises a handful of research findings about software development, describes how the research is carried out and reviewed and how he explores it, and contrasts those evidence-based results with the pronouncements of charismatic thought leaders. He also notes how and why this kind of research is hard in the software world. I won't pull much from the talk because I want to encourage you to watch it. Go on, it's reasonably short, it's comprehensible for me at 1.25x, and you can skip the section on Domain-Driven Design (the talk was at DDD Europe) if that's not your bag. Let me just give the same example that he opens with: research shows that most code reviews focus more on the first file presented to reviewers rather than the most important file in the eye of the developer. What we should learn: flag the starting and other critical files to receive more productive reviews. You never even thought about that possi...

How do I Test AI?

Recently a few people have asked me how I test AI. I'm happy to share my experiences, but I frame the question more broadly, perhaps something like this: what kinds of things do I consider when testing systems with artificial intelligence components . I freestyled liberally the first time I answered but when the question came up again I thought I'd write a few bullets to help me remember key things. This post is the latest iteration of that list. Caveats: I'm not an expert; what you see below is a reminder of things to pick up on during conversations so it's quite minimal; it's also messy; it's absolutely not a guide or a set of best practices; each point should be applied in context; the categories are very rough; it's certainly not complete. Also note that I work with teams who really know what they're doing on the domain, tech, and medical safety fronts and some of the things listed here are things they'd typically do some or all of. Testing ...

Express, Listen, and Field

Last weekend I participated in the LLandegfan Exploratory Workshop on Testing (LLEWT) 2024, a peer conference in a small parish hall on Anglesey, north Wales. The topic was communication and I shared my sketchnotes and a mind map from the day a few days ago. This post summarises my experience report. Express, Listen, and Field Just about the most hands-on, practical, and valuable training I have ever done was on assertiveness with a local Cambridge coach, Laura Dain . In it she introduced Express, Listen, and Field (ELF), distilled from her experience across many years in the women’s movement, business, and academia. ELF: say your key message clearly and calmly, actively listen to the response, and then focus only on what is relevant to your needs. I blogged a little about it back in 2017 and I've been using it ever since. Assertiveness In a previous role, I was the manager of a test team and organised training for the whole ...

Software Sisyphus

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "How can I possibly test 'all the stuff' every iteration?" Whoa! There's a lot to unpack there, so let me break it down a little: who is suggesting that "al...

Not a Happy Place

A few months ago I stopped having therapy because I felt I had stabilised myself enough to navigate life without it. For the time being, anyway. I'm sure the counselling helped me but I couldn't tell you how and I've chosen not to look deeply into it. For someone who is usually pretty analytical this is perhaps an interesting decision but I knew that I didn't want to be second-guessing my counsellor, Sue, or mentally cross-referencing stuff that I'd researched while we were talking. And talk was what we mostly did, with Sue suggesting hardly any specific tools for me to try. One that she did recommend was finding a happy place to visualise, somewhere that I could be out of the moment for a moment to calm disruptive thoughts. (Something like this .) Surprisingly, I found that I couldn't conjure anywhere up inside my head. That's when I realised that I've always had difficulty seeing with my mind's eye but never called it out. If I try to imagine ev...

Why Question?

Questions are a powerful testing tool and, like any tool, can be used in different ways in different scenarios with different motivations and different results. A significant part of my role is generating questions and I will generally have a lot of them. I will rarely ask them all, though, and I've put a lot of time and effort into learning to be comfortable with that. A couple of examples: I was in a meeting this week where the technical conversation was too deep for me to give a perspective from a position of knowledge. I could have disengaged, but I didn't. Instead, I asked occasional questions, not wanting to derail the discussion or disrupt the flow. Some were detail questions, to help grow my understanding. Some were scoping questions, to help understand motivations. The one that really landed, however, was about the focus of the meeting. Although I couldn't contribute at a low level, I understood enough to suspect that we were not discussing the key problem tha...

Hiccupps

Search This Blog