According to the common text book definition, a smoke test in software context is the preliminary testing done to check whether there are severe and straight forward defects in a given release, which are sufficient to reject the release without any further tests.
Though commonly used in software industry nowadays, the term is believed to have been originated from electronics industry. When an electronic device comes out from the production line for quality checking, the very first test done on it usually is to provide power and check whether any actual smoke comes out. Of course, the device under test will be rejected if it smoked at this stage.
More or less similarly, in software industry also the very first line of testing done on a particular build or release is to check whether it 'smokes' - that in the sense, to check whether there are any straight forward issues that could stop any further testing.
I gave this blog the name of this specific test method. The intention actually spans the borders of common objectives of a typical smoke test. I intend to write in this blog about certain experiences i have collected for past years as a software quality assurance professional. So let's see how it goes on.
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