What is the difference betweek Adhoc testing and Exploratory testing?

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Permalink Reply by Himanshu Patel on March 29, 2010 at 5:49pm

Here is the answer to this question which was provided by Pradeep Soundararajan (http://testertested.blogspot.com)

In my opinion, most of the answers here appear to be
misguiding because a) they do not know who coined the term
/exploratory testing/ and who practice it, who research on
it and who teaches them.

Dr Cem Kaner coined the term Exploratory Testing somewhere
around 1980 although people were doing it much before that
without having a name to it.

The latest update about the definition of Exploratory
Testing from the man who coined it can be accessed in this
link : http://www.satisfice.com/kaner/?p=42 and quoting from
that

/“Exploratory software testing is a style of software
testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and
responsibility of the individual tester to continually
optimize the value of her work by treating test-related
learning, test design, test execution, and test result
interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in
parallel throughout the project.”//

Now, that looks like a complex memorization puzzle to many
testers and hence they attempt to provide a concise
definition or often plagiarizing it.

Not owing credits to the man who has been working on it or
to men who have been working on it for a long time is an
extremely bad idea and the biggest harm to the community.

Saying that - I do not mean you should not be coining
another definition of your own but the fact is hardly anyone
who have their own definitions get it tested enough.

For instance, if you are introducing a new definition of
testing, would you bother to check it up with other people
who have been researching on it? Probably not because you
are free to think anything you want or create more chaos to
existing stuff.

The interesting thing is most interviewers also fail to
recognize the so called correct definition of exploratory
testing. If Dr Cem Kaner was a candidate in one of the
interviews, the interviewer would blindly reject the
definition that Dr Cem Kaner says on exploratory testing
unless the interviewer identified Cem Kaner and his work.

So, we are in a chaos and that's not a problem compared to
our mindset of being happy with the chaos. The advantage for
poor thinking minds is they shine as much as others do in a
chaotic environment and that's probably why you and me have
a job today.

Regards,
Himanshu Patel

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Permalink Reply by Ajay Pardhi on March 29, 2010 at 5:51pm

Adhoc: Learn the application and then test it.

Exploratory: Test the application While learning

Example: If Your quality Assurance or lead told u ki do testing without giving any concreete documents

So in this situation your approach should be

Adhoc: Gather the documents from all possible sources,document it then u can proceed for testing

Exploratory: Gather the application document and simultaneously test it.

Thanks

Ajaykumar Pardhi

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Permalink Reply by Julfiur Rahman on December 9, 2012 at 10:13pm

Thanks Ajay,  Its a nice answer....

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