The Tests Never End: An Overview of Software Testing Methods for Actuaries – Part 2 of 3
This is the second in a 3-part series where Joe Alaimo and Andy Rallis discuss the different types of testing, what they are, how they are performed and ways that they apply to the software development that actuaries are involved in.
Have you ever been involved with a software development project? One thing that all software development projects have in common is testing. You may have been involved in some of the testing of these systems or maybe you were in meetings where testing was discussed or perhaps you are interested in doing more testing in the work that you are doing. You may have heard some terms such as unit testing, integration testing and functional testing but are not sure what the differences are. You may also not work with software development but want to understand elements of software testing so that you can apply them to your actuarial work.
In this second installment of a 3-part series, Joe Alaimo and Andy Rallis cover four other types of testing: Property Testing, Smoke Testing, Load or Performance Testing, and User Acceptance Testing. Similar to part one, topics include what these types of testing are, how they are performed and ways that they apply to the software development that actuaries are involved in. Joe and Andy explain why each method is important, provide examples and discuss tools that can be used to help with testing.
Links to the tools discussed in the podcast:
R: hedgehog: A property based testing library that integrates with testthat and the Tidyverse.
Python: hypothesis: A python property testing library that integrates with pytest.
