Roger Hayes

Why Test Applets? Why do we test an applet? What are we trying to show when we test? This article is addressed to the developer/tester, someone who is testing their own Applets. Nonetheless, all but a very few of the observations and techniques apply to the problem of testing someone else's code. The largest difference is probably the emotion upon finding a bug. An Applet is a Java class. When we test it, we are trying to show that it is a good Applet; specifically, that it has certain good properties, and lacks certain bad properties. The important properties of an applet can be categorized under two broad headings: functionality and portability. Functionality We wrote the applet to do something; perhaps as simple as displaying bouncing text, perhaps as complex as querying a remote database for molecule structures and displaying those in 3D. Our testing should find ... (more)