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A favourite technique of one of my colleague's was just to mash the keyboard randomly to see if the app breaks. It's very crude and not at all foolproof. For t

A favourite technique of one of my colleague's was just to mash the keyboard randomly to see if the app breaks. It's very crude and not at all foolproof. For the lack of sophistication it's shockingly effective at highlighting a huge amount of assumptions we make about how software is / can be used.

jsrcout 6y ago
One of my professors back in college loved to do that. "Shockingly effective" is exactly the right term. Learned a lot from that little exercise.
- jannes 6y ago
  This makes me wonder if there's a tool that can auto-generate random inputs and send them to the application. (maybe excluding Alt-Tab to avoid switching away from the application) Fuzzing is a pretty popular testing technique for libraries, but GUI software has not seen the same attention.
  - dgellow 6y ago
    GUI fuzzing is a thing, yes. I've seen it mostly on mobile apps but I'm sure you have it for other type of GUIs. Example of tools: https://www.fuzzingbook.org/html/GUIFuzzer.html https://www.fuzzingbook.org/html/GUIFuzzer.html
  - taneq 6y ago
    GUI fuzzing was a thing way back on the original Macintosh: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Monkey_Lives.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... Something similar should be reasonably easy to build these days using AutoHotKey or the like. I bet it's been done.
capableweb 6y ago
This even has a name, "monkey testing". Basically some software that pretends to be a monkey in front of a computer and mashes random buttons and keys to make the application behave badly. Usually you only care about the application not breaking in monkey tests. Can be used similarly to "fuzzing" but for UIs as well, see Gremlins.js: https://marmelab.com/blog/2020/06/02/gremlins-2.html https://marmelab.com/blog/2020/06/02/gremlins-2.html
- chowells 6y ago
  You could use a fish, too: https://www.dexerto.com/pokemon/pokemon-fans-pet-fish-discovers-game-breaking-sapphire-bug-years-later-1429506/ https://www.dexerto.com/pokemon/pokemon-fans-pet-fish-discov...
- sethammons 6y ago
  This is how, at age 12 or so, I discovered in the old Windows game “Chip’s Challenge” that you could cheat and unlock (nearly all) levels. If you tried ctrl+n (I think), you could advance to the next level, but only if you had beaten the current level or had the pass code for the level. In a bout of frustration, I rando-mashed the keyboard and advanced to the next level, and could then ctrl+n to the last level! I could reproduce the effect, but never worked out the actual combination that unlocked it. Good times :)

jsrcout 6y ago

One of my professors back in college loved to do that. "Shockingly effective" is exactly the right term. Learned a lot from that little exercise.

jannes 6y ago
This makes me wonder if there's a tool that can auto-generate random inputs and send them to the application. (maybe excluding Alt-Tab to avoid switching away from the application) Fuzzing is a pretty popular testing technique for libraries, but GUI software has not seen the same attention.
- dgellow 6y ago
  GUI fuzzing is a thing, yes. I've seen it mostly on mobile apps but I'm sure you have it for other type of GUIs. Example of tools: https://www.fuzzingbook.org/html/GUIFuzzer.html https://www.fuzzingbook.org/html/GUIFuzzer.html
- taneq 6y ago
  GUI fuzzing was a thing way back on the original Macintosh: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Monkey_Lives.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... Something similar should be reasonably easy to build these days using AutoHotKey or the like. I bet it's been done.

capableweb 6y ago

This even has a name, "monkey testing". Basically some software that pretends to be a monkey in front of a computer and mashes random buttons and keys to make the application behave badly. Usually you only care about the application not breaking in monkey tests. Can be used similarly to "fuzzing" but for UIs as well, see Gremlins.js: https://marmelab.com/blog/2020/06/02/gremlins-2.html https://marmelab.com/blog/2020/06/02/gremlins-2.html

chowells 6y ago
You could use a fish, too: https://www.dexerto.com/pokemon/pokemon-fans-pet-fish-discovers-game-breaking-sapphire-bug-years-later-1429506/ https://www.dexerto.com/pokemon/pokemon-fans-pet-fish-discov...
sethammons 6y ago
This is how, at age 12 or so, I discovered in the old Windows game “Chip’s Challenge” that you could cheat and unlock (nearly all) levels. If you tried ctrl+n (I think), you could advance to the next level, but only if you had beaten the current level or had the pass code for the level. In a bout of frustration, I rando-mashed the keyboard and advanced to the next level, and could then ctrl+n to the last level! I could reproduce the effect, but never worked out the actual combination that unlocked it. Good times :)