Watirtight Testing
Articles to explore and discuss both big picture ideas involving the state and direction of software testing as well as interesting implementation details of whatever I happen to be working on.
The name is a play on words for Watir, the software I am a lead developer for, and Watertight (as in a watertight door).
The word has special meaning for me since I served on a submarine for several years. My first exposure to quality assurance was from the Navy's SUBSAFE program. A quality failure on a submarine from a loss of watertight containment is literally catastrophic.
This term also conveys a certain amount of irony. I don't believe software testing should be undertaken with the same rigor as a SUBSAFE program. Software tests should not be 'watertight,' they just need to be cost effective. The time and energy to conduct testing needs to provide greater value than the combined likelihood of a bug and the potential harm that can result from that bug.