On 03/30/2012 10:08:00 AM, Chris McMahon - cmcmahon@wikimedia.org wrote:
This article was making its way around the testosphere this morning to much approval. Although I question some of the numbers cited, I like the overall description a lot, and since I have been having so many discussions about QA on various projects, I thought it would be of interest to wikitech: It's a short read, "The Confusion Around QA" http://www.headspring.com/2012/03/the-confusion-around-qa-why-doesnt-the-ind.... (Ian Baker in particular will I think recognize some of the points here that we covered in our own discussions)
Thanks for a link to that nice little article.
I attribute the problem discussed to a failure of education, a failure to make clear the point of "computer programming" etc.
I also remember Dijkstra, who wrote, long ago now, "no amount of testing can prove the absence of defects", and made the unassailable case, at least for me, that defects had to be prevented by design. This is essentially the "discovery" that the author of the referenced note describes. I can not recommend "Notes on structured programming" enough. A pdf reprint of the book "Structured Programming", which contains it, is available through the ACM. Note that all 3 authors later, independently received Turing awards.