From: Ian Sommerville (is@COMP.LANCS.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Apr 11 2003 - 23:02:00 EST
It seems to me that the benefits of writing test programs are
comparable to the benefits of
writing formal specifications - they force a detailed analysis of the
requirements and this reveals
problems. In that respect, both are good things but that doesn't make
them good requirements descriptions.
The problems are also comparable - they cannot be understood by system
stakeholders so it is impossible
to know if they represent what they think are their requirements.
Stating 'a good automated test can also be a good requirements document' is only valid if you think that requirements documents are intended solely to communicate with programmers. I don't.
Ian
On Wednesday, April 9, 2003, at 03:47 PM, Jane L Huang wrote:
>
> I recently received an invitation to a talk by Robert Martin about
> requirements and testing
>
> In the promo he states that:
>
> "Agile methods have taught us a great deal about automated testing,
> both at the unit level and at the system level. Agile methods have
> also taught us that well written automatic tests are better at
> specifying requirements than prose documents are."
>
> He then goes on to claim that "a good automated test can also be a
> good requirements document."
>
> I would be very interested to hear people's points of view on this.
> Let's assume that the agile approach is being applied in a non safety
> critical application.
>
> Do you agree that agile automated tests can replace requirements
> specifications? What would we lose by doing this? Also, could agile
> concepts such as early delivery and feedback compensate for any of
> these losses?
>
> This is a refrain I am hearing increasingly often from a growing agile
> community, and I think a good discussion would be very useful.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jane Huang, PhD.
> School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information
> Systems,
> DePaul University,
> 243 So. Wabash Avenue
> Chicago IL 60604
> 312-362-8863
> jhuang@cs.depaul.edu
>
>
>
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