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It would be really great if someone knowlegdable could add to the definition for the computer programming context which is not there yet. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dykstranet ( talk • contribs) , and edited by 206.213.251.31
Hi there; I'm not familiar with "Smoke testing" although many people in the Open Source programming movement seem to use it. It sounds like it might be the same thing as " Regression testing" combined with " Integration testing". What do you think? OrangUtanUK 12:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Brianjester ( talk) 17:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the use of terms, but I think of this usage of terms is a passing fad. I don't think there is a canonical term for this type of test. Also, the claim that it is cost-effective is an opinion. Microsoft is not the only authority. ISO might be a more neutral source. I didn't find a canonical term there for 'smoke testing'. Dagostinelli ( talk) 20:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Does it make any sense to have the plumbing article included with the electronics and software articles? This sounds like really there should be two articles: plumbing smoke tests and electronics smoke tests, with the latter including a short note on the software usage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.193.2.136 ( talk • contribs) .
I agree in that the concept of "smoke testing" is general enough to be used also for quick testing of electronics and software products even if there is no actual smoke involved (just as the metaphor of "bug" is applied to software errors).
I wonder about the following sentence: "In electronics, a smoke test is the first time a circuit is attached to power, which will sometimes produce actual smoke if a design or wiring mistake has been made." Is really the fact that sometimes a smoke test of an electronic device produce actual smoke part of the reason why the test is called "smoke test", or it is just a coincidence?
I am an electronics engineer, designing systems of less then 1 watt. Even 0.5 watt can already produce this smoke with small-sized resistors. So 30watts is not required. Placing the variac in series can even make problems worse in case of electronics... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.207.67.97 ( talk) 20:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
-- Dhinojosa ( talk) 17:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Splitting the article would help to categorize it better. 167.107.191.217 ( talk) 21:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I merged the list of short descriptions for 'smoke tests' in various fields into the longer description of each field, and put all of the descriptions into H3 headers. Hopefully this helps us have a more clear and understandable intro section, and makes the article easier to read. I have also added and cleaned up the references. Since the term 'smoke test' originates with electronics and hardware testing I have moved that section to the top. Feedback is welcome. -- Culix ( talk) 21:15, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Both Microsoft's MSDN article "How to: Configure and Run Build Verification Tests (BVTs)" and the book "Lessons Learned in Software Testing" say that smoke tests are the same thing as Build Verification Tests. I suppose you could argue that BVTs might test more broadly and have more scope. But since we have two references from good sources I propose we merge the article Build_verification_test into this article on smoke testing.
Agree or disagree? I'll leave this proposal up for a few days for feedback. -- Culix ( talk) 21:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
My personal understanding is that while the article calls smoke tests a type of "functional testing", in fact, smoke tests are generic in nature and not focused on the functionality itself. Therefore, the classification "functional test" is probably misleading to downright wrong. A BVT may be too narrow, as a smoke test might include parameters of the installation which are not part of the build itself. Example: Environment parameters, interface accessibility etc. 193.254.155.48 ( talk) 11:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
In searching Google Books for the phrase "smoke test", there are some early 20th and even late 19th century references, clearly in a plumbing context. For example. I think there's a strong possibility that someone in early electronics development was familiar with this usage and made up a joke about letting smoke out in an electronics context. -- Rpresser 23:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
The first literature example I came across was in Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia, when Holmes took, "a long cigar-shaped roll from his pocket. 'It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting.'" Brianjester ( talk) 17:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I've just undone your undos, because the article smoke testing describes "physical tests made to closed systems of pipes to test for leaks". Even though the names are the same, smoke testing in software usually does not involve actual smoke, so there's no need to cover it in the smoke testing article. Qwertyus ( talk) 22:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I would agree that this article should be disambiguated. It would be nice to have a clean page for SLDC smoke testing references. [1] Marxchuck ( talk) 01:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I think the problem here is actually with the opening paragraph of the article. The article is actually about the concept of smoke testing, both physically and metaphorically, it's historic origins and contemporary applications. The first sentence gives the impression that the article is primarily about physically testing pipes with smoke. If that were the case then I would support software smoke testing being moved to an entirely different article. However it seems to me that the intended content of this article is broad enough to encompass at least a summary of software "smoke tests" and usage in other fields. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.55.2.11 ( talk) 02:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Ok, so I've been bold again, and Walter Görlitz reverted, and now we have an article Smoke testing (software) that duplicates content from this one. Before we get into deletion wars, let me reiterate my point:
I'm going to seek a third opinion. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 01:52, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
So now we're going to make a handful of small articles. It makes no sense. The only real outlier is the entertainment entry. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 19:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Qwertyus took this issue to WP:DRN (see above). The outcome is repeated below for convenience. Op47 ( talk) 10:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Have you discussed this on a talk page?
Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.
Location of dispute
Users involved
Dispute overview
In my opinion, the article Smoke testing violates WP:DICDEF by merging various meanings of a term into a single article, using OR as the means to glue them together. I twice tried to split the one I care most about from the article, so as to have an article Smoke testing (software) that does not bury this meaning of "smoke testing" deep down in unrelated content, only to have my edits reverted both times.
Have you tried to resolve this previously?
Discussion on the talk page.
How do you think we can help?
I'd like an outsider to judge matters from the viewpoint of Wikipedia policies and conventions: are separate articles warranted, or not?
The editor placed a merge discussion and then removed the section without consensus. The topic does not have enough weight to stand on its own and it doesn't make sense to split the article. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 02:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I came to this article because I try to keep the split tag backlog under control. In this case, I found a discussion that had apparantly gone cold. I saw no compelling reason to split the article. My previous experience in these situations is it is best not to split and hence thought the best action would be to remove the tags. Obviously that won't work. There are a number if factors to consider:
Op47 ( talk) 19:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Op47 is saying he would object to any of the definitions of Smoke Testing being used as the primary search term. He/she would like a search for the term Smoke Testing to go directly to a disambiguation (dab) page where the reader could choose which meaning they would like to learn about. But if you are OK with either of his suggestions (one of which has the term going directly to the dab page) then I think we have the basis for a compromise. One concern has been that not all of the meanings for Smoke Testing has the notability etc for a stand alone article. However, that is not a problem as dab page links can either direct the reader to a stand alone article or to a specific section of a general article on Smoke Testing. So... those definitions that can support a stand alone article can have one and those that need to remain as part of combination article can do so. Either way they will all be listed on the dab page called Smoke Testing with entries like this:
Does this make sense? Is it agreeable? -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:21, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Re Keithbob's comment on 24 December. Yes you have it correct. My 1st "proposal" is what I am proposing. My 2nd is what I thought Qwertyus was proposing. Clearly I got the wrong end of the stick somewhere. It would appear that Qwertyus and I are in agreement. I suppose we will now have to persuade Walter Görlitz. Your proposal to split the article and yet not have small articles seems ok in principle, I guess we will have to find suitable articles to split to. For info, I am a he. Op47 ( talk) 00:33, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Keithbob then closed the discussion as follows:
Resolved as an agreement was reached between two main parties while one party refused to participate and objected to the DRN process. The agreement between the two primary parties seems to have formed a strong basis for further discussion and renewed consensus on the talk page. —
Keithbob •
Talk • 23:26, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Keithbob misconstrued my involvement. I did not refuse to participate only that the location of the discussion was the wrong place to attempt to achieve an consensus for this unnecessary change. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 16:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should this article be converted into a disambiguation page and split into the following articles:
Op47 (
talk) 10:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Please only place votes in this section. Any discussion in the Threaded discussion section.
I believe that is concensus to make this page a disambiguation. The concerns about small articles is noted. I'll do my best, but will acknowlege that there will be some tweaking required. Op47 ( talk) 20:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm unsure about the notability of a number of these proposed articles. They perhaps deserve definitions in a dictionary, but is there enough to say about them that is encyclopedic? For instance:
None of these has much depth to them, AFAIK. The only one which might would be the Smoke testing (mechanical), which could deal with supplying smoke, preventing loss of smoke, detecting the leaking smoke, etc.
My preference would be to have this article be explicitly about mechanical smoke testing, where you supply smoke into an enclosed space and then watch for unexpected leaks of smoke. Then add links to Fog machine and Software testing in a header. -- Dan Griscom ( talk) 03:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
It's been a few days with no further comment on the RfC. At the risk of throwing yet more chaos into this process, I'd like to make the preferences I into a concrete proposal:
If there are objections, I'll bow out, as I don't have anything else to offer. Otherwise, I'll make the changes myself in a few weeks. -- Dan Griscom ( talk) 03:02, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
It would be really great if someone knowlegdable could add to the definition for the computer programming context which is not there yet. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dykstranet ( talk • contribs) , and edited by 206.213.251.31
Hi there; I'm not familiar with "Smoke testing" although many people in the Open Source programming movement seem to use it. It sounds like it might be the same thing as " Regression testing" combined with " Integration testing". What do you think? OrangUtanUK 12:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Brianjester ( talk) 17:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the use of terms, but I think of this usage of terms is a passing fad. I don't think there is a canonical term for this type of test. Also, the claim that it is cost-effective is an opinion. Microsoft is not the only authority. ISO might be a more neutral source. I didn't find a canonical term there for 'smoke testing'. Dagostinelli ( talk) 20:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Does it make any sense to have the plumbing article included with the electronics and software articles? This sounds like really there should be two articles: plumbing smoke tests and electronics smoke tests, with the latter including a short note on the software usage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.193.2.136 ( talk • contribs) .
I agree in that the concept of "smoke testing" is general enough to be used also for quick testing of electronics and software products even if there is no actual smoke involved (just as the metaphor of "bug" is applied to software errors).
I wonder about the following sentence: "In electronics, a smoke test is the first time a circuit is attached to power, which will sometimes produce actual smoke if a design or wiring mistake has been made." Is really the fact that sometimes a smoke test of an electronic device produce actual smoke part of the reason why the test is called "smoke test", or it is just a coincidence?
I am an electronics engineer, designing systems of less then 1 watt. Even 0.5 watt can already produce this smoke with small-sized resistors. So 30watts is not required. Placing the variac in series can even make problems worse in case of electronics... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.207.67.97 ( talk) 20:02, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
-- Dhinojosa ( talk) 17:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Splitting the article would help to categorize it better. 167.107.191.217 ( talk) 21:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I merged the list of short descriptions for 'smoke tests' in various fields into the longer description of each field, and put all of the descriptions into H3 headers. Hopefully this helps us have a more clear and understandable intro section, and makes the article easier to read. I have also added and cleaned up the references. Since the term 'smoke test' originates with electronics and hardware testing I have moved that section to the top. Feedback is welcome. -- Culix ( talk) 21:15, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Both Microsoft's MSDN article "How to: Configure and Run Build Verification Tests (BVTs)" and the book "Lessons Learned in Software Testing" say that smoke tests are the same thing as Build Verification Tests. I suppose you could argue that BVTs might test more broadly and have more scope. But since we have two references from good sources I propose we merge the article Build_verification_test into this article on smoke testing.
Agree or disagree? I'll leave this proposal up for a few days for feedback. -- Culix ( talk) 21:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
My personal understanding is that while the article calls smoke tests a type of "functional testing", in fact, smoke tests are generic in nature and not focused on the functionality itself. Therefore, the classification "functional test" is probably misleading to downright wrong. A BVT may be too narrow, as a smoke test might include parameters of the installation which are not part of the build itself. Example: Environment parameters, interface accessibility etc. 193.254.155.48 ( talk) 11:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
In searching Google Books for the phrase "smoke test", there are some early 20th and even late 19th century references, clearly in a plumbing context. For example. I think there's a strong possibility that someone in early electronics development was familiar with this usage and made up a joke about letting smoke out in an electronics context. -- Rpresser 23:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
The first literature example I came across was in Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia, when Holmes took, "a long cigar-shaped roll from his pocket. 'It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting.'" Brianjester ( talk) 17:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I've just undone your undos, because the article smoke testing describes "physical tests made to closed systems of pipes to test for leaks". Even though the names are the same, smoke testing in software usually does not involve actual smoke, so there's no need to cover it in the smoke testing article. Qwertyus ( talk) 22:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
I would agree that this article should be disambiguated. It would be nice to have a clean page for SLDC smoke testing references. [1] Marxchuck ( talk) 01:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I think the problem here is actually with the opening paragraph of the article. The article is actually about the concept of smoke testing, both physically and metaphorically, it's historic origins and contemporary applications. The first sentence gives the impression that the article is primarily about physically testing pipes with smoke. If that were the case then I would support software smoke testing being moved to an entirely different article. However it seems to me that the intended content of this article is broad enough to encompass at least a summary of software "smoke tests" and usage in other fields. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.55.2.11 ( talk) 02:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Ok, so I've been bold again, and Walter Görlitz reverted, and now we have an article Smoke testing (software) that duplicates content from this one. Before we get into deletion wars, let me reiterate my point:
I'm going to seek a third opinion. QVVERTYVS ( hm?) 01:52, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
So now we're going to make a handful of small articles. It makes no sense. The only real outlier is the entertainment entry. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 19:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Qwertyus took this issue to WP:DRN (see above). The outcome is repeated below for convenience. Op47 ( talk) 10:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Have you discussed this on a talk page?
Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.
Location of dispute
Users involved
Dispute overview
In my opinion, the article Smoke testing violates WP:DICDEF by merging various meanings of a term into a single article, using OR as the means to glue them together. I twice tried to split the one I care most about from the article, so as to have an article Smoke testing (software) that does not bury this meaning of "smoke testing" deep down in unrelated content, only to have my edits reverted both times.
Have you tried to resolve this previously?
Discussion on the talk page.
How do you think we can help?
I'd like an outsider to judge matters from the viewpoint of Wikipedia policies and conventions: are separate articles warranted, or not?
The editor placed a merge discussion and then removed the section without consensus. The topic does not have enough weight to stand on its own and it doesn't make sense to split the article. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 02:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I came to this article because I try to keep the split tag backlog under control. In this case, I found a discussion that had apparantly gone cold. I saw no compelling reason to split the article. My previous experience in these situations is it is best not to split and hence thought the best action would be to remove the tags. Obviously that won't work. There are a number if factors to consider:
Op47 ( talk) 19:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Op47 is saying he would object to any of the definitions of Smoke Testing being used as the primary search term. He/she would like a search for the term Smoke Testing to go directly to a disambiguation (dab) page where the reader could choose which meaning they would like to learn about. But if you are OK with either of his suggestions (one of which has the term going directly to the dab page) then I think we have the basis for a compromise. One concern has been that not all of the meanings for Smoke Testing has the notability etc for a stand alone article. However, that is not a problem as dab page links can either direct the reader to a stand alone article or to a specific section of a general article on Smoke Testing. So... those definitions that can support a stand alone article can have one and those that need to remain as part of combination article can do so. Either way they will all be listed on the dab page called Smoke Testing with entries like this:
Does this make sense? Is it agreeable? -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:21, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Re Keithbob's comment on 24 December. Yes you have it correct. My 1st "proposal" is what I am proposing. My 2nd is what I thought Qwertyus was proposing. Clearly I got the wrong end of the stick somewhere. It would appear that Qwertyus and I are in agreement. I suppose we will now have to persuade Walter Görlitz. Your proposal to split the article and yet not have small articles seems ok in principle, I guess we will have to find suitable articles to split to. For info, I am a he. Op47 ( talk) 00:33, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Keithbob then closed the discussion as follows:
Resolved as an agreement was reached between two main parties while one party refused to participate and objected to the DRN process. The agreement between the two primary parties seems to have formed a strong basis for further discussion and renewed consensus on the talk page. —
Keithbob •
Talk • 23:26, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Keithbob misconstrued my involvement. I did not refuse to participate only that the location of the discussion was the wrong place to attempt to achieve an consensus for this unnecessary change. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 16:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should this article be converted into a disambiguation page and split into the following articles:
Op47 (
talk) 10:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Please only place votes in this section. Any discussion in the Threaded discussion section.
I believe that is concensus to make this page a disambiguation. The concerns about small articles is noted. I'll do my best, but will acknowlege that there will be some tweaking required. Op47 ( talk) 20:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm unsure about the notability of a number of these proposed articles. They perhaps deserve definitions in a dictionary, but is there enough to say about them that is encyclopedic? For instance:
None of these has much depth to them, AFAIK. The only one which might would be the Smoke testing (mechanical), which could deal with supplying smoke, preventing loss of smoke, detecting the leaking smoke, etc.
My preference would be to have this article be explicitly about mechanical smoke testing, where you supply smoke into an enclosed space and then watch for unexpected leaks of smoke. Then add links to Fog machine and Software testing in a header. -- Dan Griscom ( talk) 03:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
It's been a few days with no further comment on the RfC. At the risk of throwing yet more chaos into this process, I'd like to make the preferences I into a concrete proposal:
If there are objections, I'll bow out, as I don't have anything else to offer. Otherwise, I'll make the changes myself in a few weeks. -- Dan Griscom ( talk) 03:02, 14 January 2014 (UTC)