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All Oracles Are Heuristic

In which the conversation about heuristics and oracles continues… “So what’s the difference,” I asked my tester friend Tony, “between an oracle and a heuristic?” “Hmm. Well, I’ve read the Rapid Testing stuff, and you and James keep saying an oracle is a principle or mechanism by which we recognize a problem.“ “Yes,” I said. “That’s what we call an oracle. What’s the difference between that and a heuristic?” “An … Read more

Heuristics for Understanding Heuristics

This conversation is fictitious, but it’s also representative of several chats that I’ve had with testers over the last few weeks. Tony, a tester friend, approached me recently, and told me that he was having trouble understanding heuristics and oracles. I have a heuristic approach for solving the problem of people not understanding a word: Give ’em a definition. So, I told him: A heuristic is a fallible method for … Read more

Problems with Problems

People sometimes seem to struggle with a concept that’s central to testing, the concept of “oracle”. In the three-day Rapid Software Testing class, we define an oracle as a principle or mechanism means by which we recognize a problem. Sometimes I like to emphasize that oracles are fallible and context-dependent. When that’s so, I say that an oracle is a heuristic principle or mechanism means by which we recognize a problem. (Updated … Read more