bugs

[Mark Wieder]

David-

Friday, April 7, 2006, 3:26:29 AM, you wrote:

> Approach 2, results in much better software and much happier
> engineers. The idea is to have QA involved right from the start, at
> the design stage. QA's job here is to ensure that components (such as
> libraries etc.) are unit tested as they are written.

100% agreement on approach 1 vs 2. It really is true that the best way
to eliminate bugs is not to code them in the first place. I always
like to get QA involved at product inception and follow the sdlc
through to the release.

But... it shouldn't be QA's job to do unit testing. That's
development's job. The tests written by QA should complement the unit
tests in terms of integration testing, functional and boundary tests,
etc. Otherwise you get QA locked into the same mindset as development
to where you know what the program is supposed to do, so you don't
test other scenarios. It's the same reason you can't do proper QA on a
product you've written yourself. I've had my own apps pass all the
unit tests I've written and come through with flying colors, only to
be shot down in five minutes when I handed the "finished" product off
to someone else.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net