Is it ok if I use a quote from this blog post and link to it? I’m writing something about testing beyond code coverage (so basically, targeting areas unlikely to already be covered). The point is that most advocates of using code coverage tools already understand what it is used for, and I doubt many people are left who are still of the mistaken mindset that 100% code coverage=100% test coverage. I’m not planning to argue for or against that, just to say that the conversation has moved past that, and that I want to talk about testing in the space beyond those basics.

Let me know if the general idea sounds ok and I’ll send you a draft so you know what I’m talking about and can approve or decline.

Thanks,
Lanette

Hi Lanette,
Yes, you are free to quote anything from my blog posts.

I agree and I suspect that most folks understand that code coverage != test coverage. But, I also think that many people get hung up on the raw number which is silly.

As I said in the post in 2007 ” the most important measure with regards to code coverage is not how much has been exercised, but the percentage of code that has been unexercised by our testing.”

Part of our job as testers is to investigate the untested areas of untested code. That is what code coverage analysis is. If it is important to reduce our susceptibility to risk in those untested areas of code then we must analyze the untested areas and see if we can design tests to evaluate that code efficiently.