This week on Herding Code, Jon leads a discussion with Daniel Plaisted about Model-Based Testing and the progressive practices of the MEF team.

  • Daniel speaks of the primary development roles at Microsoft and how the MEF team addresses testing concerns. Guess what.  Developers write tests, too.
  • Daniel talks about Model-Based Testing and validation of transitions and states.
  • Scott K is reminded of a presentation he attended at Northwest Python Day which spoke of protocol and framework testing.
  • Daniel shares the need of trim test cases to manageable sets which will still ensure adequate coverage.
  • Jon asks about mapping out the endless states that may be found when testing MEF. 
  • Jon asks about test frequency. Are tests run on each check-in?  Are they scheduled?
  • The guys address the difference test types – unit, functional, performance and stress tests.
  • Kevin asks about coordination of developer and tester efforts.  Who produces which tests and where is each group’s focus?
  • Daniel explains Exploratory Testing
  • Scott K asks about Heisenbugs and how closely testers work with developers to resolve hard-to-reproduce defects.
  • Jon asks if the MEF testers use any debug/test tools which are built into Visual Studio.
  • Kevin asks if any special considerations must be made when QAing an open source project. 
  • Daniel explains how model-based testing works well for verifying cache states.
  • Scott K asks about test environment setups and how deep the MEF testers need to dive into the bugs in order to adequately report on them.
  • Jon asks Daniel to share tips to help developers improve their own unit tests and improve broader testing.
  • Daniel talks about MEF’s beginnings. It’s not an IoC container.  Oh wait. It is.
  • What type of tester are you?  The guys speak of a recent Google Tester Blog post on tester types.
  • Kevin ask if the progressive approach which MEF takes is gaining traction throughout Microsoft.
  • Jon asks how Daniel became a tester, a Microsoft MEF tester.
  • Kevin asks how much collaborating occurs between the various testing teams at Microsoft.
  • Daniel briefly talks about Synchronization Coverage.

Note: The audio’s a little rougher than usual this week. Sorry about that.

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Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!

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Herding Code 73: Daniel Plaisted on Model-Based Testing in Action on the MEF Team

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