Ask HN: What kind of test methodology people like Dennis Ritchie used?

2 points by calebjosue 10 months ago | 4 comments
I am positive about the benefits of TDD.

Still, sometimes I found asking myself what kind of test methodology people like Dennis Ritchie exercised? You know, inventing a programming language like C seems a colossal endeavor.

In general what kind of testing methodology they were using back in the day, in the "golden age" of computing.

Sorry if the answer for this question is heavily documented elsewhere and I didn't do a proper research prior to asking.

Thanks!

  • gregjor 10 months ago
    My programming career dates back to the '70s, so I can tell you what programmers did back then from my experience: examined core dumps, inserted "print" statements, desk-checked (manually read through) code with a colleague.

    We didn't have debuggers per se, but we could step through code one instruction at a time and examine memory. On the PDP minicomputers you would do that from the front panel with switches and lights.

    I had to read assembly code and dis-assemble memory contents into assembly routinely back then. I'm sure Dennis Ritchie did that too, that skill was part of the toolbox.

    While TDD became a buzzword and cult much later, in the companies I worked at back then we often/usually had to submit a test plan with code to run the tests for any non-trivial code. At my first job (Nike, 1979) we called that code a test harness, more or less the same thing as modern unit tests without the automation. Most companies I worked for through the '80s would run a parallel hardware system for testing/staging, and we worked with business and systems analysts who could verify correct implementation of business rules and look for performance bottlenecks (more of an issue back then compared to today).

    Brian Kernighan wrote a book about his days at Bell Labs that covers the development of Unix and C.

    • calebjosue 10 months ago
      Phew! Now that was a lot of work. Thanks for taking the time to write such detailed answer. I really appreciate it.
    • 082349872349872 10 months ago
      On the off chance no one here answers, maybe try asking on TUHS? https://www.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

      (Doug and Ken were still posting there as of last month, and if anyone knows what Dennis' testing habits were back then, they would)

      • calebjosue 10 months ago
        Thank you very much for point me to this amazing resource. I am not sure if I am going to engage asking over there because as much as I love learning from other people so I can implement some of their ideas into my life, at the end of the day is all about action I suppose instead of searching for the holy grail on what's the best way to put a product out there. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my question.