Talk:Exploratory testing

I will extend this article under the more correct term Exploratory testing, and then redirect to that page. Epim 18:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

None of the references given here are from authoritative sources (such as an IEEE conference proceedings). I suggest that in order for readers not to suspect that this article is a parody, that contributors find at least one solid reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.73 (talk) 01:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a hard time believing that the previous comment is not a parody (using an appeal to authority to criticize a page whose underlying philosophy is to empower individuals to question "authority".) However, I am not comfortable pointing to this page's claim that exploratory testing finds important bugs faster than scripted testing without a reference to some kind of a study somewhere. 4.79.245.132 (talk) 20:36, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not a claim, it's a goal. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:52, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced content
The following sentences seem misplaced in this article: "James Bach is also the inventor of Competitive Swashbooking in which contestants read as many books as they can in an eight hour period and try to summarize them to the best of their abilities. The key to success is keeping ones dog away from the notes that one prepares[6]." -- Dougher (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Exploratory vs adhoc
Hi all. Based on some surfing I just did on the subject, it seems to me (humbly of course) that:
 * the article would need a comparison section between adhoc and exploratory
 * that section will not be easy to write, as specialists seem to argue about this without any clear conclusion

By this I mean that, although each tester may have their own opinion, it seems unclear to me that there is a consensus with clear definitions (and not just, it's more of this and a bit less of that). Comparisons I have seen are mostly side-by-side definitions, and almost never have hard, technical differences.

Any opinions?

My suggestion: "Both exploratory testing and adhoc testing are terms still used in today's testing community. There is no technical authoritative distinction, but each term retains a set of values. Adhoc generally means improvising tests, with differences of understanding whether the tests are documented afterwards or not, or whether the subject to be tested should be known beforehand; Exploratory puts the accent on discovering the tested subject, or some of its features, while testing, and may be documented and even formalised in test plans." --Jrob kiwi (talk) 12:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your paragraph is unsourced and it's ad hoc not "adhoc". Some of the technique's key proponents, the Bach brothers and Michael Bolton, have used the term interchangeably. Haven't heard Kaner enough lately, but he has had more distinction between the terms. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your quick reaction. Agreed: My paragraph is unsourced because it is merely a suggestion, because as a principle I try to be constructive in my criticism :-) So overall I agree with you that a specialist would be better of than me at fleshing it out. As for the second part of your message, I understand that there is indeed the confusion that was the object of my remark. So I still believe it would be useful to add a short and clear paragraph about the differences between ad hoc and exploratory, or at least a short paragraph reminding the reader that confusion is still possible even at the expert level. If my suggestion is not ok, then maybe someone else could try... Jrob kiwi (talk)
 * We discussed this at a workshop run by the Bach's and made the distinction that Ad Hoc Testing is sort of a meandering through the functionality as whim strikes (often an affective technique by an experienced tester) as opposed to a planned and rigorous exploration of an application guided somewhat by what is learned in the process, like discovering the kinds of mistakes that a particular development team makes, such as failure to do critical bounds checking, one off errors, lack of checks for "impossible situations." (Nobody would do that.)  Alan Jorgensen: Softtest123 (talk) 06:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! This may be a nice answer to my question, even though I'm not sure it's the definitive answer... Would there be a quotable source for it? (I understand you are first-hand witness to a reknown expert, but that may not be enough) Jrob kiwi (talk)

'Exploration testing'
I did a search query for 'exploration testing' and this article didn't come up at all in the search results. I only came across it when I did a DuckDuckGo search for the same query. Is the term 'exploration testing' a correct or commonly used synonym for exploratory testing? Should there be a redirect, or some tweak that can be made to article metadata to at least get article listed in search results? — Preceding unsigned comment added by IAmAI (talk • contribs) 08:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, that is not a commonly used synonym. In fact Google asks "Did you mean: exploratory testing" and it does that when you've made an error in typing. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2019 (UTC)