Should Test Assertions be required

Should specification developers be required to include Test Assertions (TA) 
in their specifications?

some Pros:
1. ensures testable specifications
2. consensus in what is required
3. facilitates test generation

some Cons:
1. cost (time) to create
2. may not be appropriate or adequate for test developer's use - ideally 
having TAs would help the test developer, but if the test developer has to 
tweak the TAs to fit his design/method, then...
3. not needed since generate tests directly from Spec. For example, with 
Schema, for the simple datatypes, we are able to automatically generate the 
test case from the normative Schema for Schemas.  (this works for about 
80%, for the other 20% we would need to build TAs)

IMO specifications should (must?) identify the testable statements or test 
requirements. But depending on your definition of TA, these may not be as 
formally represented (stated) as a TA.

Lets think about the objective - identifying the testable statements and 
facilitate the building of test suites - without going overboard and 
burdening the specification developer.  So, what would be approparite?

Comments?

This topic will be discussed on monday's (june 9), QA WG telecon.
Lynne

Received on Friday, 6 June 2003 07:56:58 UTC