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From: bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: separate SW testing newsgroup
Message-ID: <9731@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 19:04:49 GMT
References: <5512@taylord> <1990Dec12.213754.27370@ashtate> <5789@catfish10.UUCP> <916@pdxgate.UUCP> <278@smds.UUCP>
Reply-To: bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 38

In article <278@smds.UUCP> rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:

>Well my humble view is that testing is drudge work.  That's why you have
>machines do it.  People are supposed to design and implement the procedures
>that let the machines do it.  Or as that noted authority on software
>development (me) said:
>
>	"Any procedure whose purpose is to improve software quality
>	 which is not automated is a bug waiting to happen."

Focusing on the current thinking on quality software, which is to
build the quality in up front - in the thinking stage - not in the testing
"automatable" stage, then my corollary to Richard's law is:

         "Any procedure that can be completely automated does not
          have any significant influence on software quality."

The key assertion is that by the time we understand a procedure well enough
to completely automate it, then the most significant benefits dervied
from that procedure have already been realized in the manual form and
automating it will cause inconsequential improvements in quality (over
the manual form).  

Automation is still desirable to preclude special causes of variation in 
quality (Richard's "bug waiting to happen"), but the real boost in quality
(reducing common causes of variation) came from the initial idea behind the
procedure.  

This corollary does not preclude the fact that automation may
dramatically increase productivity even if it doesn't increase quality.
Unfortunately, we've automated parts of some procedures (such as testing)
and this partially automated procedure becomes the whole procedure ("but it
PASSED the test suite!").  

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