# Good Test Plans

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 4, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533 "2006-04-04T14:27:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/1 "2006-04-04T14:27:56Z")

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This isn’t a ruby question specifically but I’m sure you guys have some  
good ideas. I need a good test plan template. I am currently using an  
open office spreadsheet that is set up for a test plan, but I hate it.  
Is there a good template out there for download? The spreadsheet I’m  
using is terrible to work with. What are you using?

Charlie B.  
Programmer  
Castle Branch Inc.

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**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 2:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/2 "2006-04-04T14:46:07Z")

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Charlie B. wrote:

> This isn’t a ruby question specifically but I’m sure you guys have some  
> good ideas. I need a good test plan template. I am currently using an  
> open office spreadsheet that is set up for a test plan, but I hate it.  
> Is there a good template out there for download? The spreadsheet I’m  
> using is terrible to work with. What are you using?

Make it executable!

For functional/acceptance testing, I would investiate Fit, Fitnesse or  
Systir. For web based apps, Watir or Selenium are possibilities. The  
key is to make the test spec readable to users and executable on the  
machine.

For unit tests, that means Test::Unit (or your language’s equivalent).  
However, if you are writing test plans for unit tests, I would suggest  
that you would gain more benefit by moving to a more test driven  
approach.

–  
– Jim W.

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**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/3 "2006-04-04T15:05:01Z")

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The test plans are for a massive curses application (over 200,000 lines  
of code). Most of the code is very old and not very testable. Most of  
the code doesn’t even use sub routines (perl). I’m not sure that it is  
feasible to modify all the code to make unit tests possible. It would  
just take too long and I’m not in a position to make that decision. I’m  
just trying to get a good test plan ready so that the application can be  
tested by QC.

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**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/4 "2006-04-04T18:19:02Z")

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Start from functional tests.

Make sure you have control on the data that is fed to the system and  
on its configuration.

Then run the system and automatically save the results to file.  
Next time you make a change to the code you can run the system with  
the controlled configuration and data set and check that the new  
output are still equal to the old outputs.

While this will not tell you where the error is, it can give you the  
confidence that the code has not been broken.

After you have this under control you can start refactoring with this  
safety net and proceed isolating and testing smaller and smaller  
chucks of code… down to unit tests.

I have produced a Vba framework that helps me doing this with excel  
and it works quite well.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/5 "2006-04-05T07:21:15Z")

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I think Expect can be used with curses applications. Originally Expect  
was embedded in TCL, but versions have been embedded in other languages  
such as Python. Maybe someone has done a Ruby port.

Bret

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/6 "2006-04-06T17:35:07Z")

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zdennis wrote:

> [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rexpect](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rexpect)

I couldn’t tell from the webpage(s): Can this be used with [Ruby] curses  
apps?

Pistos

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2006, 12:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/good-test-plans/93533/7 "2006-04-05T12:49:27Z")

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Bret P. wrote:

> I think Expect can be used with curses applications. Originally Expect  
> was embedded in TCL, but versions have been embedded in other languages  
> such as Python. Maybe someone has done a Ruby port.

[http://rubyforge.org/projects/rexpect](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rexpect)

Zach