http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/6888

Thanks Erik, I like the notion of multiple labels so I fully support whatever helps people remember the approaches.

On the subject of heuristics… Readers should note that there are other sources of heuristics… they aren’t always labelled heuristics. For example, the ‘attacks’ in the “How to Break Software” book series can be applied as heuristics.

I have slowly come to believe that ‘heuristic’ acts as one of those ‘global’ words that encompasses every other word and we can’t get away from it :)

When I read “How to break …” books, I found applying the ‘challenge assumptions and presuppositions’ approach a really useful exercise. By challenging the ‘assumptions’ or presuppositions listed in the attacks you can start to generalise the attacks listed and apply them in other contexts.

Ah, that sweet sucker punch of presupposition.
:)

A heuristic is “a fallible method for solving a problem or making a decision”. Algorithms are methods of solving problems or making decisions. Do we know of algorithms that will never fail?

—Michael B.

Thanks for the comment Michael. I wrote “Since it can’t count as a an algorithmic approach” in the post because I read the dictionary.com definition of ‘heuristic’ when I wrote the post. Dictionary.com uses the text “pertaining to a trial-and-error method of problem solving used when an algorithmic approach is impractical”. I would certainly not treat what I wrote as algorithmic, therefore I count it as heuristic. I don’t know enough mathematics to know if there exist algorithms that people consider infallible.