{"id":3220,"date":"2014-10-28T17:55:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T23:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/handyvandal.com\/?p=3220"},"modified":"2015-03-04T20:42:23","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T02:42:23","slug":"tetris-and-software-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/2014\/10\/tetris-and-software-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Tetris and Software Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Witham recently observed:<\/p>\n

It’s hard to test software: even simple software!<\/a><\/p>\n

He writes:<\/p>\n

Tetris is one of the best-known computer games ever made. It’s easy to play but hard to master, and it’s based on a NP-hard problem.<\/p>\n

But that’s not all that’s difficult about it. Though it’s a simple game that can be implemented in one line of BBC BASIC, it’s complex enough to be really hard to thoroughly test.<\/p>\n

Ideally, a game tester has to try every possible action, in order to be sure that the game works correctly whatever the player does. But even in a simple game, there is so much to test!<\/p>\n

Recently my employer Rapita Systems released a tool demo in the form of a modified game of Tetris. Unlike “normal” Tetris, the goal is not to get a high score by clearing blocks, but rather to get a high code coverage score. \"Tetris<\/a>To get the perfect score, you have to cause every part of the game’s source code to execute. When a statement or a function executes during a test, we say it is “covered” by that test.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like it! <\/p>\n

It’s a game and<\/em> a tool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Witham recently observed: It’s hard to test software: even simple software! He writes: Tetris is one of the best-known computer games ever made. It’s easy to play but hard to master, and it’s based on a NP-hard problem. But that’s not all that’s difficult about it. Though it’s a simple game that can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,244],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programming","category-tetris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3220"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3224,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3220\/revisions\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/handyvandal.com\/wphv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}