[iasay]

Fresh out of university as an EE in my first job I was surprised to find that the rule was "if it conforms to the tests then it works". Sometimes the tests were poorly designed or were narrow enough only to test the happy paths. Box ticked, ship to customer.

I eventually moved to software at which point I discovered that it's even worse here. It's at least 10^6x more difficult to kill people though and you usually don't have to get off your chair to undo the carnage.

[bee_rider]

Yes in software we don't even have to worry about trying to get the magic smoke back into the chip (very difficult).

[pixl97]

> "if it conforms to the tests then it works".

Um, but what if someone does something outside of the tests.

"Well, then it breaks".

Yes, but this is software, how does it break?

"Hopefully not badly and insecurely"

[Aloha]

Often its "If it appears to pass the test it ships".