You may be wondering… since Facebook apps are Web apps, why do I need a special place to discuss testing them? Can’t I apply the same tools and techniques for developing and testing web apps to my Facebook apps?

Well, as with many things in life, the answer is yes and no.  Sure you can use PHP and your favorite tools to build your app. However, because of the uniqueness of the Facebook Platform, there are special considerations that you need to think about when testing a Facebook app. Perhaps you’ve already encountered some of these special issues:

• How can I perform load testing on my app without defining hundreds, if not thousands of phony Facebook users, and how do I control them all? (…and BTW, defining phony users violates the Facebook Terms of Use Section 4.1)
• If I’m doing performance testing, how do I factor out the time spent at the Facebook servers during API calls and FBML-to-HTML rendering?
• Are there special security issues for social media applications, and how do I test for these?
• How do I tell if if my application is usable?
• How do I test my application when our development schedule is already behind?
• Are there any special issues when testing applications written for Facebook Connect?
• How do I do proper load testing when Facebook doesn’t allow me to hook up automated test tools? (Again, check the Facebook Terms of Use Section 3.2)
• Now that Facebook will proactively apply their Developer Principles, how can I be sure that my app doesn’t violate them?
• How do I test in an environment where the Platform is constantly changing?
• How can I simulate some of the error conditions that Facebook returns when I call API functions?

We plan to discuss these, and many other similar topics here. But mostly, we want this to be a resource for you. If you have a question or topic that you’d like discussed, or want to be a part of our ongoing knowledge base of Facebook testing, please let us know at admin@testfacebook.com.