The Theology of Testing; Or, Why I Want to be Just an Engineer Again (Part 1)

The tests had been in progress all day, and the flustered look on the faces of the testers gathered around the test equipment indicated that things weren't going well. The Test Director, armed with his clipboard, approached.

"Gentlemen," the Test Director inquired, "how is it going?" The grimace upon his face revealed that he had no hope of good news.

He was not disappointed.

"It doesn't work," the Chief Feature Tester - who also happened to be the Chief Feature Developer - replied. "But it isn't our fault! The hardware isn't working properly, and the test equipment isn't adequate to our needs."

"And the Test Procedures are complicated and difficult to follow," complained the Assistant Feature Tester.

"But you wrote the Test Procedures," the Test Director pointed out.

The Assistant Feature Tester had the grace to blush.

"It doesn't matter!" cried the Chief Feature Tester. "We can't write good Test Procedures unless we have good equipment to work with, and good hardware to test with, and this setup doesn't have either one!"

The Test Director knew that this was true, but he also knew that it wasn't going to change anytime soon. "So what do you need?"

"More time. The right test equipment. Hardware that works."

The Test Director sighed. "Let me rephrase that. What do you need right now in order to test what you can with the hardware you've got?"

"More time."

"How much time?"

The Chief Feature Tester pondered a moment. "How much time have do we have?"

"We ship in two weeks."

"Okay. We need two weeks."

"But that won't give us enough time to fix any problems you find."

The Chief Feature Tester growled. "It's already too late to fix anything we find. It'll take us two weeks just to get the test procedures to the point where they're actually testing the software instead of the test procedures."

The Test Director thought for a moment.

"So, if I understand you correctly, you're telling me that it will take us two more weeks to get to the point where our test procedures are actually doing what they are designed to do, which is finding problems with the software."

"Yes."

The Test Director stifled a twitch.

"Even though we've been working on these test procedures now for something on the order of three months."

"Yes."

The Test Director blinked. The light was hurting his eyes all of a sudden.

"Very well. Carry on."

The Test Director turned and walked out of the laboratory, clutching his clipboard like a life ring. In an hour, he would be sitting in a conference room explaining to management why they were going to ship software that hadn't been adequately tested, and he was feeling a desperate urge to fill his bloodstream with analgesics.