5 ms·
Was anyone using a spreadsheet to drive automation for testing earlier than 1988? I have some reason to believe my team was the first within Apple SQA to lean
by satisfice 6mo ago
Was anyone using a spreadsheet to drive automation for testing earlier than 1988?
I have some reason to believe my team was the first within Apple SQA to lean heavily into that, but I’d love to hear of earlier examples.
- klaff 6mo agoI know that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_Spreadsheet?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_Spreadsheet?wprov=sfla1 existed since '84 and was in use in disparate parts of the company (I hit the printer division in the summer of '88). IBM was still using mainframe tools, including FORTRAN and APL for engineering work, and we were using BASIC for some testing automation as well as stuff written in assembly (bit banging of parallel ports as GPIO).
- satisfice 6mo agoAutomation was used in testing since the beginning, of course. (Earliest vivid example I have is from a 1956 television commercial.) Spreadsheets certainly existed. We know that. What I don't have is any example or testimonial from anyone, earlier than 1988, of using a spreadsheet to DRIVE automation used in testing. I would be surprised if I was the first to have thought of it. I can only say that my team asked around Apple and found no one doing this but our team, at that time.