Long time, no blog…

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Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve sat down and posted anything. That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been interesting things happening. Quite the contrary. There’s been lots of things happening, but I just have not taken the time to type it out.

So, let’s list out a few things that have happened since my last post:

  • I’ve been thinking about this blog a lot and how I want it to look in the future
  • Went to Dale Hollow Lake (Willow Grove Resort, Tennessee) for Memorial Day weekend – it was awesome
  • Got my garden planted
  • Got poison ivy REALLY bad!
  • Went to Ouray, Colorado, rented a Jeep, did some 4-wheeling, saw the most beautiful views and scenery – all in 4 days, 7 hours, and 11 minutes!
  • Learned about using table variables at work – @table – and found this awesome article that helped a lot!
  • Have made several hundred changes to almost all of the fields in the UI (user interface) screens at work, resulting in a dramatic decrease in server load (I can’t take credit for the idea, but I did do the legwork to make it all work)
  • Harvested first fruits of the garden
  • Wrote more than a few SQL scripts to delete bad data and update with the good information (out with the bad, in with the good)
  • Lots of rain in June (and July too actually), bad for the tomatoes, good for the grass

And so, now it is July 23!

SQL query to find existing triggers in your DB

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USE myAwesomeDatabase
SELECT  table_name = OBJECT_NAME(parent_object_id) ,
        trigger_name = name ,
        trigger_owner = USER_NAME(schema_id) ,
        OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsUpdateTrigger') AS isupdate ,
        OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsDeleteTrigger') AS isdelete ,
        OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsInsertTrigger') AS isinsert ,
        OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsAfterTrigger') AS isafter ,
        OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsInsteadOfTrigger') AS isinsteadof ,
        CASE OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, 'ExecIsTriggerDisabled')
          WHEN 1 THEN 'Disabled'
          ELSE 'Enabled'
        END AS status
FROM    sys.objects
WHERE   type = 'TR'
ORDER BY OBJECT_NAME(parent_object_id)
This works great – very handy to have when you need to see what triggers are on what tables in your database!
PS – I used the sample code tag in the HTML view to ‘force’ the single quotes to behave correctly in the code snippet above. Thank you to HTML Goodies for a great article on this!
PSS – I should also add that I great information with these 2 articles regarding triggers – UBER-helpful!!

Software Testing – Tools

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Software testing tools – just the bare-bones basics…

  1. Test plan – this is a test specification.  Knowing that a car will be tested to drive at a speed of 60 miles per hour helps the developers of the car to design it in such a way that it does indeed drive at a speed of 60 miles per hour.
  2. Test script – this is a piece of programming code that replicates user actions.
  3. Traceability matrix – this is a table that is used to change tests when source documents are changed
  4. Test case – this is a defined input with an expected result.
  5. Test suite – this is a term used for the collection of test cases, often including more detailed instructions or goals.
  6. Test harness – software, tools, samples of data input and output, and configurations are collectively known as a test harness.

Software Testing – Types

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There are many (a lot!) different types of software testing.  I won’t go into any of them in detail, but just wanted to familiarize myself with some of the terms and the basics.

  1. Installation testing – this ensures that the system is installed correctly and working properly at the user’s hardware location.
  2. Compatibility testing – this checks for correct operation between application software when systems or environments are upgraded from the original, possibly causing other pieces to not work correctly.
  3. Smoke testing – this is a minimal attempt to operate the software and is used to determine if there are any basic problems.
  4. Sanity testing – this determines if it is reasonable to go ahead with further (more in-depth) testing.
  5. Regression testing – this focuses on finding defects after a major code change has happened.
  6. Acceptance testing – this may be performed by the customer and is part of the hand-off process between phases of development.
  7. Alpha testing – this is a simulated or actual operational test by potential users
  8. Beta testing – this comes after alpha testing and may be a form of external user acceptance testing.
  9. Functional vs. non-functional testing – this is an activity to verify a specific action or function of the code (does this particular feature work?).
  10. Destructive testing – this attempts to force the software to fail and verifies that the software functions properly even when receiving unexpected inputs.
  11. Performance testing – this is used to determine how a system performs under specific workloads (responsiveness, large quantities of data, large number of users, etc), and there’s a whole set of sub-tests (load, volume, stress, stability – and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably).
  12. Usability testing – this looks at the user interface to see if it is easy to use and understand.
  13. Accessibility testing – this relates to standards associated with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
  14. Security testing – checking for security!
  15. Internationalization and localization – this looks at translating software into different languages, keyboards, fonts, bi-directional text, and date/time formats.
  16. Development testing – this supports QA testing and is executed to eliminate construction errors prior to code going to QA.
  17. A/B testing – this is a comparison of two outputs, usually when only one variable has changed, typically used in small-scale situations.
  18. Concurrent testing – this focuses on the performance when running continuously with normal inputs.
  19. Conformance testing – this verifies that a product performs according to its standards.

Whew – what a list!  I really didn’t realize all of the different types of testing.  I think I intuitively have done some of these things before, but didn’t know that it had a specific name.