Your Index into
Software Test Automation

Preface

Noel Nyman wrote Chapter 14, "Black Box Monkey Testing," in the "Visual Test 6 Bible." This article defends the values this type of random testing brings to the software testing process.

Excerpt

"We get conflicting opinions about the efficacy of 'monkey' test tools. Boris Beizer suggests in Black Box Testing that test monkeys aren’t very useful for testing today’s 'professionally created software.' His analysis concludes that the use of good testing practices will find more bugs than 'keyboard-scrabbling or Rachmaninoff testing.' But James Tierney, former Director of Testing at Microsoft has reported in internal presentations that some Microsoft applications groups have found 10-20% of the bugs in their projects using monkey test tools. Which assessment of monkey testing is correct? Probably both."

About the Author

"As a life-long devotee to the study of the esoteric, Noel Nyman has made unique contributions to software test automation. When he joined Microsoft, Nyman discontinued his exhaustive study of the undocumented op-codes in 65xx series microprocessors and devoted his unusual talents to applying unstructured randomized stochastic testing to retail GUI applications (dumb monkey testing). He specializes in complex test using Rational Visual Test, and may be in large part for that product’s changing market penetration. An occasional presenter at software testing conferences and contributor to Software Testing and Quality Engineering magazine, Nyman continues his career at Microsoft as a Test Lead in Applications Compatibility."

In Defense of Monkey Testing (.rtf format) (39 kb)