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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

[Note: The story is dated September 2014, but I just stumbled upon it and think the subject matter is interesting enough that others in the community might find it both enlightening and entertaining. --martyb]

Bill Sempf posted a humorous take On Testing [sempf.net] which started with a tweet [twitter.com]:

QA Engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a sfdeljknesv.

He continues:

This is 'edge case' testing; posting values to a system that really don't belong there. It came to mind because of a problem I had encountered in a system I was working on earlier.

[...] As it turns out, there are a lot of people who are all about this. The replies to my tweet over the last 24 hours covered a lot of ground, but by far were those that wanted to push the edge testing to the max - and I love it.

The posting gathers a quite remarkable set of tests submitted in response. The whole story is well worth reading, but among the notables there were:

Ah yes, the Edge Case Saloon. A fine establishment.

Orders a gimlet. Orders a gauntlet. Orders the 80s arcade game Gauntlet. Orders 4 beers. Orders 3 friends to come over for some fun.

Unhooks the tap and orders a beer. Breaks all the glassware and orders a beer. Sets the bar on fire and orders a beer.

Walks into the bar backwards. Runs into the bar. Sits at the bar overnight doing nothing to see what happens. Tries to sell a beer.

Quickly orders a second beer before the first is served.

[Continues...]

[EXTENDED COPY FOLLOWS]

Orders two Orders betwoers asynchronousbeersly. asynchronously.

[...] Drunken, sweating, he wipes the suds from his lips. "I should have automated that."

Automates the ordering of beer. Does a UI test, gets a hangover. Does regression test the next day.

[...] orders 1 ; select * from liquors; — beers.

[...] Qa neglected null test case due to time constraints issued by PM. Qa downsized after poor release they refused to sign off on.

Heartbleed walks into a bar. Says "Give me a beer" but holds up two fingers. The bartender tells his life story.

Original Submission