People view the act of uncovering defects in software as being dependent on the experience of the person. So is it only an art? What if we viewed the problem of uncovering defects as solving a mystery? And who is better than Sherlock Holmes to solve mysteries? He solved these not via sheer experience, but via the power of deductive reasoning. By hypothesizing possibilities and then proving each one.
And he is the inspiration behind HyBIST for ‘how to hypothesize potential defect types’ in software – what aspects to look for from what views. And then treat the act of testing as an intelligent method of proving the presence of defects rather than rely on pure experience only.