The Art of War, Chapter 13 and Software Testing

Can a 2000+ year old book provide insights into Software Testing? Well it can if you interpret it. The Art of War - chapter 13 "Spies" requires less interpretation than most.

Reconnaisance is very important for Spying, and for Testing. I specifically name some of my Exploratory Sessions as Recon sessions because I'm using the session to learn more, before I dive in and start testing.

Sun Tzu describes this process as gaining foreknowlege, and attributes it to a result of spying. "what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.”

And years before Waterfall projects, Sun Tzu perfectly describes what many people experience in Software Development “Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State”

Sun Tzu describes five types of spies: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies. These map on well to sources of knowledge when testing.

(1) Local spies - access to the internals of the application

(2) inward spies - using the system to help us test it

(3) converted spies - development tools and code

(4) doomed spies - tooling and automating

(5) surviving spies - people performing testing

Do testers find things that other people don't? Yes. But how? By harnessing “divine manipulation of the threads.” i.e. "When these five kinds of spy are all at work"

Sun Tzu also covers Software Development Management “Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.”

Sun Tzu describes Test Management “They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.”

Sun Tzu also describes what some people might consider the ultimate point of Software Testing “The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy;”

I have expanded on all these points, and more, in my blog post "Bonding with The Art of War Chapter Thirteen" over at https://www.eviltester.com/blog/eviltester/2020/02/14-testing-spies-art-of-war/

I recommend reading The Art of War. A quick glance at my bookshelf reveals that I have read, consulted, and revisited, at least eight different translations. The Art of War has impacted my Test Process, and my Management Process. I thoroughly recommend studying The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

And you can read the translation by Lionel Giles online at many sites. Here are a few:

• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War_(Sun)
• https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/132
• https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html