The goal of a statistical software tester is to verify that the software functions correctly and produces valid results. The mantra of a successful tester is (to paraphrase President Ronald Reagan), “Don’t trust and verify!” Testers build suites of test programs and benchmark the results, including graphical displays. A SAS test suite has thousands of procedure calls to validate numeric results, verify functionality of statements and options, and check for proper error handling. These suites are run frequently during the development cycle and any benchmark changes are investigated. A thorough test suite detects unexpected side effects of updates to the code.
Amstat News
The Membership Magazine of the American Statistical Association