Testing

From W3C Wiki

The Testing wiki is no longer maintained.

The canonical resource for W3C's Open Web Platform Testing Effort is now on testthewebforward.org.

As described in the Open Web Testing Plan, there are a number of factors driving the need for a broad testing effort of the Open Web Platform. First, the HTML WG is approaching completion of the HTML5 spec and will need to prove interoperability to move to Recommendation. This will require the development of a large test suite.

Secondly, the platform has dramatically increased in complexity as it shifted from being strictly a document exchange platform to becoming a fully applicative one. Keeping the different implementations interoperable will also require a concerted testing effort.

Thirdly, as the scope of the platform broadens so does the number and diversity of its stakeholders (mobile, automotive, TV, developers, etc.), which have increasingly pressing demands to push testing further and into areas which bring them more value.

Note: If you want to learn how to write tests, this isn't the right place. Please go to testthewebforward.org.

Current challenges

The testing effort faces the following challenges:

  1. A large but unquantified backlog of tests to write.
  2. Little visibility into the quality and coverage of existing tests.
  3. Difficulty to obtain dedicated resources from W3C members due to the aforementioned lack of visibility.
  4. Little to no cross-WG processes, documentation and tools for testing.
  5. Difficulty to obtain outside help (e.g. from long-tail developers) due to lack of organization and infrastructure.
  6. Diverse and mainly undocumented requirements coming from various stakeholders

High Level Goals

  • Develop infrastructure, documentation and process to make W3C's testing story more compelling,
  • Massively increase test coverage of specs though crowd-sourcing, vendor contributions and outsourcing, with an initial focus on specifications found in the intersection of the Coremob and Web & TV profiles.

Communication channels

All work related to this effort is happening in the following channels:

Other channels of interest in Testing/Liaisons.

Task Forces

Scope

Initial Focus

Longer term

Liaisons

See Testing/Liaisons.

Meetings

Archives

Resources