View source for TestableOrNot

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When designing a specification with testability or not, it may be hard to evaluate whether a given assertion is testable or not; testability is often confounded with objectivity (whereas subjective testing exists) or automatibility (whereas manual testing exists). So, what is testable? what's not?

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Discussion materials...

* [http://www.w3.org/2002/02/mid/5.1.0.14.2.20020906152404.02b48390@rockynet.com;list=www-qa "Testability Definition"], Sep 2002
* [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Oct/0024.html "Lack of testability definition"], Oct 2003, followed up in [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Nov/0000.html November 2003]

From this thread, the latest proposed definition was:
   A proposition is testable if there is such a procedure that assesses the truth value of a proposition with a high confidence level. Whether the confidence level is measurable and what confidence level is high enough depends on the proposition and its framework.

(the testability question sure enough surfaced again [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2004Apr/0012.html in a later thread on www-qa])

This proposition came [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Nov/0007.html from Alex Rousskov], with a [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2003Nov/0010.html precision from Al Gilman]. An important point that it makes is that testability is relative to the context in which it is used; an assertion can be qualified as testable in one context, and not in the other. [@@@What defines this context? What implications does it have on the way a technology is designed?]

Once we have an acceptable definition, it should be added to the [http://www.w3.org/QA/glossary.html QA Glossary]. 
 ''so... then this is a [[ProxyTopic]]?'' --[[DanConnolly]]
  ''no, it should get more data than the glossary, esp. how to make something testable, noodling about the relative context of testability... --[[DomHazael]]''

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