From wikipedia:
It refers to the first test made after repairs or first assembly to provide some assurance that the system under test will not catastrophically fail. After a smoke test proves that "the pipes will not leak, the keys seal properly, the circuit will not burn, or the software will not crash outright," the assembly is ready for more stressful testing.
In computer programming and software
testing, smoke testing is a
preliminary to further testing, which
should reveal simple failures severe
enough to reject a prospective
software release. In this case, the
smoke is metaphorical.
