A dry run is a testing process where the effects of a possible failure are intentionally mitigated. For example, an aerospace company may conduct a "dry run" test of a jet's new pilot ejection seat while the jet is parked on the ground, rather than while it is in flight.
In computer programming, a dry run is a mental run of a computer program, where the computer programmer examines the source code one step at a time and determines what it will do when run. In theoretical computer science, a dry run is a mental run of an algorithm, sometimes expressed in pseudocode, where the computer scientist examines the algorithm's procedures one step at a time. In both uses, the dry run is frequently assisted by a table (on a computer screen or on paper) with the program or algorithm's variables on the top.
The usage of "dry run" in acceptance procedures (for example in the so called FAT = factory acceptance testing) is meant as following: the factory - which is a subcontractor - must perform a complete test of the system it has to deliver before the actual acceptance from the contractor side.
Famous quotes containing the words dry and/or run:
“Since time immemorial, one the dry earth, scraped to the bone, of this immeasurable country, a few men travelled ceaselessly, they owned nothing, but they served no one, free and wretched lords in a strange kingdom. Janine did not know why this idea filled her with a sadness so soft and so vast that she closed her eyes. She only knew that this kingdom, which had always been promised to her would never be her, never again, except at this moment.”
—Albert Camus 1013–1960, French-Algerian novelist, dramatist, philosopher. Janine in Algeria, in The Fall, p. 27, Gallimard (9157)
“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)