Advantages of Black Box Testing
- more effective on larger units of code than glass box testing
- tester needs no knowledge of implementation, including specific
programming languages
- tester and programmer are independent of each other
- tests are done from a user's point of view
- will help to expose any ambiguities or inconsistencies in the
specifications
- test cases can be designed as soon as the specifications are complete
Disadvantages of Black Box Testing
- only a small number of possible inputs can actually be tested, to test
every possible input stream would take nearly forever
- without clear and concise specifications, test cases are hard to design
- there may be unnecessary repetition of test inputs if the tester is not
informed of test cases the programmer has already tried
- may leave many program paths untested
- cannot be directed toward specific segments of code which may be very
complex (and therefore more error prone)
- most testing related research has been directed toward glass box testing
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