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Your average scripter likely isn't writing a whole lot of proofs or going through the rigors of formal program verification, generally. Which is fine because your average scripter also isn't writing software for jet airliners or nuclear power plants or robotic surgeons. But somebody is—and the odds are pretty good that your life has been in their hands very recently. How do you know they're not a complete hack ?
Well, you don't really. Which prompts the question: How is this sort of code tested? It was a short blog post written by Gene Spafford, a professor of computer science at Purdue University, that inspired this particular asking of the question.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-is-critical-life-or-death-software-tested
[Related]: They Write the Right Stuff by Charles Fishman at Fast Company
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 03 2015, @12:40PM
You realize, I hope, that automated tests doesn't help you discover bugs, only making sure bugs didn't regress.
You may discover bugs while coding/scripting automated test cases. But you'll need to make sure it's a bug of the product under test and not a bug in your automation script, so the discovery in not exactly due to an automated test execution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gargoyle on Wednesday June 03 2015, @03:11PM
As a Software Tester, I've lost count of the number of times I've had that conversation with the development manager.
It's got to the stage now that I find it hard to believe that it's not willful ignorance of what Automated Testing gives. It's like he believes that the number of test conditions checked is the best/only metric which matters.