- Testing Axioms
- Software Testing Is a Risk-Based Exercise
- Testing Can't Show That Bugs Don't Exist
- The More Bugs You Find, the More Bugs There Are
- The Pesticide Paradox
- Not All the Bugs You Find Will Be Fixed
- When a Bug's a Bug Is Difficult to Say
- Product Specifications Are Never Final
- Software Testers Aren't the Most Popular Members of a Project Team
- Software Testing Is a Disciplined Technical Profession
- About This Article
Product Specifications Are Never Final
Software developers have a problem. The industry is moving so fast that last year's cutting-edge products are obsolete this year. At the same time, software is getting larger and gaining more features and complexity, resulting in longer and longer development schedules. These two opposing forces result in conflict, and the result is a constantly changing product specification.
There's no other way to respond to the rapid changes. Assume that your product had a locked-down, final, absolutely-can't-change-it product spec. You're halfway through the planned two-year development cycle, and your main competitor releases a product very similar to yours but with several desirable features that your product doesn't have. Do you continue with your spec as is and release an inferior product in another year? Or, does your team regroup, rethink the product's features, rewrite the product spec, and work on a revised product? In most cases, wise business dictates the latter.
As a software tester, you must assume that the spec will change. Features will be added that you didn't plan to test. Features will be changed or even deleted that you had already tested and reported bugs on. It will happen.