[thelist] Dummy database data

[Luther, Ron]

Peter Brunone noted:

>>I wonder what you would think of something like www.testdata.com for 
>>this.  They seem to have some pretty advanced services, although I've 
>>never used them myself.


Hi Peter,

Thanks for the link!  

That may be a useful resource. I guess it depends on what you are doing.

[I inadvertantly sent my last email before I was finished with it. 
I had also wanted to point out:

(1) That sometimes, (maybe not all of the time - but sometimes), you 
can grab or ask the client for a few thousand records out of the 'live' 
data environment to do your testing and development with.

(2) If you have the time and expertise you can generate dummy data on 
your own ... in perl or whatever you prefer to work with.

(3) That thelist archives, (IIRC), contain some threads dealing with 
dummy cc numbers to use for testing shopping cart back end processes.]


In my job I usually have the luxury of working with a subset of 'live' 
data. The big benefit to that over dummy data is that it allows me to 
address data quality issues faster and at an earlier point in the 
development process. ["Hello, Ms. client? Remember that field you 
told me only contained the values 'x' and 'y'?  I'm seeing a value 
of 'z' in 100,000 records. How do you want the app to handle those?"]

If you use dummy data in development and testing, you don't find out 
about those until after you go live.


HTH,

RonL.