In contrast to all the other important test methodologies, “Test Like You Fly”, or TLYF for short, emphasizes testing to find fundamental flaws in a system that will prevent it from performing the mission. Most testing methodologies strive to confirm that requirements - the input to our designs - are being met by the system as written. By Tim Chambers.
TLYF is all about confirming that the system - as a whole - will operate in the environment it is designed to operate, the environment we typically refer to as “live” or “production”. It is vitally important to find what doesn’t perform as expected and to understand the reasons for this anomalous behavior, especially where such defects can degrade, cripple, or abruptly end a mission.
In our testing strategies we frequently attempt to isolate the component under test - large or small - from the rest of the system. We know what we want to test, and fine-grained or coarse, we test segments of the system. The larger the component, or the broader the test, the more we tend to try and prove it WILL work - work “as designed”.
TLYF comes at the system from the other direction. Testing Like You Fly is designed to as completely as possible drive the system as it will exist in production. It demonstrates that the mission of the system or application can achieve success, not that it merely meets requirements. All components are wired together and available in as real-world an environment as is possible. Read this article in full to get some very interesting insights!
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