Netscape Communications Position Paper
W3C Workshop on Quality Assurance
Christine Hoffman (chrisd@netscape.com)
Gerardo Kvaternik (gerardok@netscape.com)
Netscape Communications
AOL Time Warner
Date Created: 3/14/01
Last Updated: 3/16/01
Netscape's latest client software provides broad and deep support for
W3C standards. We view standardization, and compliance of our products
with such standards, as a way to ensure that users have a consistent Web
experience regardless of the operating system or hardware platform they
use to access the Web.
Experience
Netscape Quality Assurance ensures the quality and compliance with Web
standards of the Netscape browser, which is based on the open source browser
development of mozilla.org. Netscape Quality Assurance tests browser
conformance with HTML, CSS, DOM, JavaScript, XML, RDF, HTTP, FTP, and other
increasingly important technologies for the Web, as defined by W3C, IETF,
ECMA, and other standardization organizations.
The Quality Assurance activities performed at Netscape include:
-
Creating SQA documentation for the assessment of procedural and product
compliance with Web standards.
-
Writing test cases for acceptance, functional, stress, performance, and
regression testing.
-
Running systematic test cycles providing evidence of the fitness for use
of the total software product.
-
Evaluating test results, reporting failures, distributing failure reports,
and verification of code fixes.
-
Validating the software at the end of the software development process
to ensure compliance with software requirements.
Our testing methodology includes manual and automated testing. To
that end, Netscape has developed several test tools to improve the productivity
and reliability of our testing processes. We have also developed
test harnesses for automation that feature queuing and execution of test
cases on a fault tolerant test environment, as well as logging and processing
test results.
Needs
We are most interested in the W3C QA working group accomplishing the following
tasks:
-
Defining test outlines/matrices for Web standards conformance testing.
-
Creating test suites for complex functional testing.
-
Hosting test case repositories that would enable submission and exchanging
of test cases for each standard.
-
Developing common test harnesses for running tests.
Expectations
We expect that Netscape Quality Assurance will become more deeply involved
in the W3C QA activities. This is a great opportunity for us to share
our understanding of the state of affairs for Web QA tools, technical and
business practices and conformance activities at the W3C or related to
W3C specifications. For example, sharing with other groups what test
suites they might have that would be of use to us, and so on.
Furthermore, as the W3C is planning the start of the W3C QA activity,
we would be able to give feedback on the course of action within the W3C
that would best benefit Web developers, in general, and mozilla.org, in
particular.
Potential Contributions
By centralizing quality assurance knowledge, testing methodologies, and
tools for testing Web standards compliance in the W3C, Netscape, together
with other companies who need to test Web standards compliance, and organizations
such as NIST, could leverage work of other members to improve the comprehensiveness
and effectiveness of Web standards compliance testing.
