From: "ara.t.howard" Date: 2008-09-13T04:58:03+09:00 Subject: Re: How to use this Combinatorial testing technique On Sep 12, 2008, at 1:02 PM, Caleb Clausen wrote: > Obviously complete data coverage is out of the question, for almost > all cases. But your coverage of data doesn't have to be complete in > order to be sufficient. Usually, you want to show that you're covering > typical cases, as well as hitting all the corners and edges. But how > do you know you've covered all those edges? That's what I'm wondering > about. Is there some way to assess (for any language, tho ruby would > be nice) how close you're getting to covering a set of data which is > suitably representative of your entire set of possible data? i think our minds are quite good at this - we have to select the data, write the coverage tools, the testing tools, the ci tools, and the code itself after all. clearly software we write cannot be more effective that the people writing it. it may sound heresy to some people on this list, and elsewhere, but i think dynamic languages like ruby require a, possibly additional (on top of tdd, bdd, whatever), rigorous process of *thought* and *discussion* to really build good code. mechanical analysis is simply one way to approach coverage. a nice article summarizing what i'm saying http://michaelfeathers.typepad.com/michael_feathers_blog/2008/06/the-flawed-theo.html it's simply worth considering that 3 people in a room *now* maybe quite easily be able to achieve what current tools cannot, and may never be able to. ymmv. a @ http://codeforpeople.com/ -- we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better. simply reflect on that. h.h. the 14th dalai lama