Inside Coverage
If you're in IT you must have heard "coverage". It is a positive number representing "measured value" of "a thing". e.g. code coverage.
It is used to indicate code quality. e.g. code coverage of 70% and above is considered good.
I am certain, this isn't new.
However, for me it was! It never satisfied my curiosity when it comes to quality. Following are some of my observations and I believe it be helpful to decision makers, developer community and quality advocates.
- Why you need coverage? An honest answer is the key.
- What needs to be covered? e.g. requirement, design, implementation i.e. internal code, external code (3rd party libraries, frameworks etc)
- What is covered and what not?
- What is excluded from coverage? Why?
- What is included in coverage? BTW - including everything is not the right answer. For instance inclusion of test code, a common mistake!
- What is the quality of test cases? Remember GIGO? Garbage in Garbage out!
If quality is central to what you do, please feel free to connect, comment and share your thoughts. I will be expanding each topic for a deeper dive.