Chapter 22. Test Evaluation

“Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.”

Edsger Dijkstra

This chapter describes the characteristics of good tests. These characteristics include being understandable to customers, not fragile, and test a single concept.

Test Facets

The following discussion of things to look for in tests came partly from Gerard Meszaros [Meszaros01], Ward Cunningham, and Rick Mugridge [Cunningham01]. Overall, remember that the tests represent a shared understanding between the triad.

Understandable to Customers

The test should be written in customer terms (ubiquitous language) (Chapter 24, “Context and Domain Language”). The tables should ...

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