I think Cem Kaner put it best in his writing called "The Insapience of Anti-Automationism"
"A test is checking to the extent that it is designed to produce results that can be compared, without ambiguity, to results anticipated by the test designer.
A test is not-checking to the extent that it can produce a result that is not anticipated by the test designer but is noticeable and informative to the person who interprets the test results."
Seriously it sounded as though the argument was that the distinction does not exist because both are equally valuable and checking is most common.
But I find that even in his examples of where checking is occurring misses the fact that his planning and executing those initial checks falls into testing and the continued checking fall outside testing.
James isn't against tools, they are important to testing. But creating a distinction is valuable as there is a different mindset to accomplishing both, along with an ability to identifying what each bring to the table and what is lost if one is ignored.
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Testing vs Checking is, imo, a false dichotomy.
I think Cem Kaner put it best in his writing called "The Insapience of Anti-Automationism"
"A test is checking to the extent that it is designed to produce results that can be compared, without ambiguity, to results anticipated by the test designer.
A test is not-checking to the extent that it can produce a result that is not anticipated by the test designer but is noticeable and informative to the person who interprets the test results."
I highly recommend reading the full article.
Great, thank's a lot for the pointer—will do!
Roesslerj I think wrote a good explanation why there is value in the distinction.
Testing vs. Checking — so what?
roesslerj
Seriously it sounded as though the argument was that the distinction does not exist because both are equally valuable and checking is most common.
But I find that even in his examples of where checking is occurring misses the fact that his planning and executing those initial checks falls into testing and the continued checking fall outside testing.
James isn't against tools, they are important to testing. But creating a distinction is valuable as there is a different mindset to accomplishing both, along with an ability to identifying what each bring to the table and what is lost if one is ignored.