[Haskell-cafe] Tests by properties: origin?

[Richard O'Keefe]

As far as I'm aware:
 - property-based testing wasn't new (think 'assertions' and then
   think 'branch coverage')
 - randomly generated test cases weren't new (look up 'fuzz testing')
   and there were tools like DGL to generate random test cases in a
   controlled sort of way
 + the *type-driven* approach making it nearly effortless to test
   a property once stated was new.

As soon as I met QuickCheck, I knew what it was for and how to use it.
The truly astonishing thing was how _easy_ it was to get started.  It
is true that other languages have since picked up the idea (like
Erlang), but without Haskell's type system to drive it, it's not nearly
so easy to get started.  The Haskell implementation of QuickCheck was a
couple of pages of code.  The first Erlang implementation is a serious
proprietary product.