Link to the Show / Show Notes
In today's session, Wolfgang talks with Dr. Jeff Joyce about testing safety-critical systems. That's a fancy term for things that can put lives at risks, such as medical hardware, air traffic control systems, military applications and automobiles. Their discussion, interestingly, includes reference to an early talk with James Bach on exploratory testing.
Jeff is a co-founder of a newly formed Vancouver-based company, Critical System Labs, that specializes in the development of safety-critical software-intensive systems. He formerly worked as a Senior Systems Engineer withRaytheon, leading the safety analysis of the Canadian Automated Air Traffic System (CAATS) and a relatedmilitary system.
Here are a few quotes from today's conversation:
One of the key standards in the area of safety-critical systems and that's particularly important in the aerospace and automotive industries is something called D0178B. That really emphasizes requirements-based testing and scripted testing that differs significantly from exploratory testing.
A common mistake that's made is that people will specify a bunch of safety requirements, and they'll decide that the only testing that needs to be done is to verify those safety requirements. That really misses out on understanding where all the vulnerabilities of the system are.
80% of the defects are typically in 20% of the code. So, if you apply smart testing and you can find the 20% that is most vulnerable, andyou focus your testing there, you'll get a much higher return on investment or results than if you blindly or stupidly test like a machine.
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