Vital Program Testing Guidelines

1 A necessary part of a test case is a definition of the
expected output or result.
2 A programmer should avoid attempting to test his or her
own program.
3 A programming organization should not test its own
programs.
4 Thoroughly inspect the results of each test.
5 Test cases must be written for input conditions that are
invalid and unexpected, as well as for those that are valid
and expected.
6 Examining a program to see if it does not do what it is
supposed to do is only half the battle; the other half is
seeing whether the program does what it is not supposed
to do.
7 Avoid throwaway test cases unless the program is truly a
throwaway program.
8 Do not plan a testing effort under the tacit assumption
that no errors will be found.
9 The probability of the existence of more errors in a
section of a program is proportional to the number of
errors already found in that section.
10 Testing is an extremely creative and intellectually
challenging task.