Automated Testing: Pairwise Testing, Mutation Testing, CI, TDD

I Introduced basic techniques for automated testing in the following posts.

• Unit Test by JUnit
• Parameterized Test
• Mock Test
• Theory Test

In this post, I mention some hints for software testing.

Pairwise Testing

It is unrealistic to test all the combination of parameters because the number of the tests increase explosively. Pairwise Testing aims to redeuce the number of tests with enough test quality and coverage by providing effective and enough combination of test parameters.
This MSDN: Pairwise Testing in the Real World: Practical Extensions to Test-Case Scenarios helps your understanding Pairwise Testing. The article also introduces the tool for Pairwise Testing.

Mutation Testing

Change the logic in the test target code (for example, change reverse an inequality sign in the "if" condition check), and check if the test result is changed (= the test case can detect the code change). Mutation Testing is "Test for test" - verifying the effectiveness of test.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration is, I think, critial stuff for modern software development.
Currently we have Jenkins or Teamcity for continuous integration tool. We can run not only testing but run some batch job, or deployment task. You definitely read Martin Fowler's article
Also I recommend ths book!

Test Driven Development

One of the technique in Extreme Programming - write failed test first and write actual code.
In my opinion, we cannot always use test first method but still storng technique in some cases
You should read following books which written by Kent Beck.