Automate Testing

[SpiderBear6]

I have a relatively large app written in VB6 and I was contemplating setting up some automatic testing. Do other people do this sort of thing? What sort of testing techniques do people use? What is your opinion on testing and how it should be done?

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[gwar2k1]

Its a bit late for you to do this now but I test things as i write them, get them to work then move on to the next thing.
When im finished, i give the app to a friend with the manual and let them go crazy. if they find any problems they let me know and ill fix it up

~*Gwar3k1*~
"To the pressure, everything's just like: an illusion. I'll be losing you before long..."

 

[SpiderBear6]

I did do unit testing along the way... but there is only so much you can test when you are writing the unit. At the moment, I give the software to someone else to play with, but I worry that they may miss something. I know I can write a test plan and have someone run through that, but test plans are so boring and easily get out of step with the code.

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"

 

[vb5prgrmr]

There are several automated testing applications out there and then there are programs that record the events the user does to play them back upon demand. This second type of application can become very handy especially when testing a program and the tester does not remember how that bug happened. You just play it back.

A simple test harness/form could be something like...
[tt]
Program Name:________________________________
Test User:___________________________________
Test Date:___________________________________

Form1:
Menu Items:
File Menu:
Item 1:______________________________________ Ok__ #___
Item 2:______________________________________ Ok__ #___
...
Edit Menu:
Item 1:______________________________________ Ok__ #___
...

ToolBar Buttons:
Button 1:____________________________________ Ok__ #___
...

Buttons:
Caption 1:___________________________________ Ok__ #___
...
[/tt]
Thus giving the testing user a format to test the individual items and objects of each form. The idea behind the individual object tests as kinda-sorta outlined above (please come up with a better format) is to make sure each individual function works as it is supposed to. The number (#) is for keeping track of the order they were tested in so if one of those hard to find bugs do appear you may have a chance to track down the events that lead up to the bug.

And I will always say that you as the programmer trying to test your own program is not as good as the person who has no idea what your program does. The unknowing user playing around with your application will find more bugs in one day than you will find in a week.

Also you may want to create a bug report for each bug in your program so that they are documented and the actions that were taken to correct or avoid the bug.

Good Luck

 

[SpiderBear6]

I guess I was looking for a way to automate testing rather than having a monkey try and break the software.

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"We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out."
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - "A Distant Star"