Oct 26, 2020
How To Break Software? — Tentamen Software Testing Blog
TL;DR
Now that we know about the Great List Of Software Testing Mnemonics created by Lynn McKee, it is time for a book that has a great list of testing ideas, How to Break Software, Whittaker, James; Addison-Wesley, 2003, ISBN: 0–201–79619–8. This is a part of the Exploratory Testing Pathway. Many thanks to Marcel, who sublimed this great resource on his blog, That’s the buffet table.
Software Is Already Broken
When you are a tester, it is very tempting to amplify philosophize activity before the actual software testing activity. You probably heard that software testers do not break software because it has already been broken. Do not make a mistake and because of this (true) statement, you decide not to read How To Break The Software. Whittaker wrote this excellent source of testing ideas before his Microsoft and Google days.
Holodeck
Book also contains a CD of Holodek software. It intercepts Windows API calls. When you want to simulate low disk capacity, you run the Holodeck and your application under test. Using the slider, you simulate disk capacity that your application under test could see. There are many more useful simulation features. I run holodeck on Windows 98, and I am not sure would it work on Windows 10.
In that book, you can find a test idea, let’s trigger all error messages in the application under test. Using this idea on the application that I tested, we created a comprehensive document with all application error messages that helped many third-party developers that needed to connect to our system.
First Edition
I just found out the price of the first edition on Amazon. I bought four used books several years ago, hopefully from 2002.
Originally published at https://blog.tentamen.eu on October 26, 2020.
