Smoke Testing

My context: Software Development.

The term comes from plumbing, where smoke is used to check leaks before going into full and heavy duty testing with water.

In software development, "smoke" is used as a metaphor. When we smoke test a software/component, we do minimum testing before applying full-fledged testing.

I can recall where an anti-smoke test was applied. The famous Jamuna bridge of Bangladesh was a multi-purpose one. One of its goal was to carry natural gas across the river. When the engineers wanted to check the pipes, they checked them with water, instead of gas. Water, being many-times heavy, caused the pipes come out from below of the bridge and fell into the river. Irony, hah!

Links:

• Smoke Testing