In calmer times, we might regard testing as one of those mundane software activities that everyone knows about, and nobody really wants to talk about. But this is 1999, the year in which the single most important IT activity in most organizations around the world will be doing Year 2000 testing of their own systems, as well as interfaces with their vendors, suppliers, and partners. As a result, we're likely to hear a lot of rhetoric this year about the need for "comprehensive" testing, and "rigorous" testing, and "formal" testing. Thus we thought it would be useful to collect some advice and suggestions from some of the best thinkers in the testing community and assemble them for your review in this issue of the Cutter IT Journal.