What is the 4th Generation White-box-testing Methodology(4GWM)

What is the 4th Generation White-box-testing Methodology(4GWM)

The 4GWM aims at defects of its ancestors, but inherits many philosophies of the 2GWM and the 3GWM. The following table lists out major differences between the methodologies:

	Test Effect Assessment	Automatic Testing	Continuous Testing	All-in-One Debugging and Testing
1GWM	No	No	No	No
2GWM	Yes	Yes	No	No
3GWM	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
4GWM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

In the above table, “Test Effect Assessment” means whether it supports coverage or index to assess the testing effect; “Automatic Testing” means whether it can formalize the testing operations and use them for next testing; “Continuous Testing” means whether it carries out testing in the continuous integration mode; “All-in-One Debugging and Testing” means whether it integrates testing design into routine product coding and debugging in a highly efficient way.

The watershed between 2GWM and 3GWM is “Continuous Testing”. Maybe you will say that your project is often upgraded and added with new test cases. Please note that they are two concepts. Among the 12 steps in improving codes in Joel testing, there is one sentence “Do you correct faults before writing new codes?” Correcting faults before writing new codes is for quality-first projects. Otherwise, it is for progress-first projects. These are two totally different styles. In the former continuous testing, test cases will be added after even one or two functions and the testing practice is melted into the development progress. The latter follows the schedule and testing is only a task of a certain stage.

Why do we relate testing methodology to software development? It is because testing is not isolated. The effectiveness of testing strongly relies on the software engineering method. In earlier development languages, only assert statements have relations with testing. In today’s C#, unit testing frameworks have become fixed components of the language. Testing scripts are also a type of product codes. Testing methodology has close relations with software development methodology in effect,which is well reflected in the 3GWM and 4GWM.

Compared with the 3GWM, the 4GWM has melted the testing process (including testing design, implementing, and improving) into the whole course of development in a highly efficient way. Here, “highly efficient” is the key words. What does “highly efficient” mean?We’ll learn 9 key features of the 3 key fields of the 4GWM at first, as follows:
A. The 1st key filed: online testing
1) Online testing driven
2) Online script stub
3) Online test case design, running, and assessment & improvement

B. The 2nd key field: grey-box debugging
1) Call-based interface
2) Debugging is testing
3) All-in-one coding, debugging and testing

C. The 3rd key field: continuous testing
1) Test design first (TDF)
2) Continuous guaranteed confidence
3) Test design reconstructing

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