• DocumentCode
    1281199
  • Title

    If you didn´t test it, it doesn´t work

  • Author

    Colwell, Bob

  • Volume
    35
  • Issue
    5
  • fYear
    2002
  • fDate
    5/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
  • Firstpage
    11
  • Lastpage
    13
  • Abstract
    Because engineers generally cannot test their creations to the point of saturation, they must make do with a lot of substitutions: anticipation of all possible failure modes; a comprehensive set of requirements; dedicated validation and verification teams; designing with a built-in safety margin; formal verification where possible; and testing, testing, testing. If you did not test it, it does not work. In some cases, computers have become fast enough to permit testing every combination of bit patterns. Many, perhaps most, things you design cannot be tested to saturation. So it behooves us to try to anticipate how our designs will be used, certainly under nominal conditions, but also under non-nominal conditions, which usually place the system under higher stress. The paper considers how programmers have a range of techniques at their disposal
  • Keywords
    program testing; program verification; bit patterns; failure modes; formal verification; safety margin; software testing; software validation; Bridges; Central Processing Unit; Conference proceedings; Crosstalk; Design engineering; Fellows; Filters; Programming profession; Software design; Testing;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Computer
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0018-9162
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/MC.2002.999770
  • Filename
    999770