Beginners Guide To Software Testing

Beginners Guide To Software Testing
Guidelines for new testers • Testing can’t show that bugs don’t exist. An important reason for testing
is to prevent defects. You can perform your tests, find and report bugs, but at no point can you
guarantee that there are no bugs. • It is impossible to test a program completely. Unfortunately this
is not possible even with the simplest program because – the number of inputs is very large, number
of outputs is very large, number of paths through the software is very large, and the specification is
subjective to frequent changes. • You can’t guarantee quality. As a software tester, you cannot test
everything and are not responsible for the quality of the product. The main way that a tester can fail
is to fail to report accurately a defect you have observed. It is important to remember that we
seldom have little control over quality. • Target environment and intended end user. Anticipating and
testing the application in the environment user is expected to use is one of the major factors that
should be considered. Also, considering if the application is a single user system or multi user system
is important for demonstrating the ability for immediate readiness when necessary. The error case of
Disney’s Lion King illustrates this. Disney Company released its first multimedia CD-ROM game for
children, The Lion King Animated Storybook. It was highly promoted and the sales were huge. Soon
there were reports that buyers were unable to get the software to work. It worked on a few systems
– likely the ones that the Disney programmers used to create the game – but not on the most
common systems that the general public used. • No application is 100% bug free. It is more
reasonable to recognize there are priorities, which may leave some less critical problems unsolved or
unidentified. Simple case is the Intel Pentium bug. Enter the following equation into your PC’s
calculator: (4195835 / 3145727) * 3145727 – 4195835. If the answer is zero, your computer is just
fine. If you get anything else, you have an old Intel Pentium CPU with a floating-point division bug. •
Be the customer. Try to use the system as a lay user. To get a glimpse of this, get a person who has no
idea of the application to use it for a while and you will be amazed to see the number of problems
the person seem to come across. As you can see, there is no procedure involved. Doing this could
actually cause the system to encounter an array of unexpected tests – repetition, stress, load, race
etc. • Build your credibility. Credibility is like quality that includes reliability, knowledge, consistency,
reputation, trust, attitude and attention to detail. It is not instant but should be built over time and
gives voice to the testers in the organization. Your keys to build credibility – identify your strengths
and weaknesses, build good relations, demonstrate competency, and be willing to admit mistakes,
re-assess and adjust. • Test what you observe. It is very important that you test what you can
observe and have access to. Writing creative test cases can help only when you have the Beginners
Guide To Software Testing Page 10 opportunity to observe the results. So, assume nothing. • Not all
bugs you find will be fixed. Deciding which bugs will be fixed and which won’t is a risk-based
decision. Several reasons why your bug might not be fixed is when there is no enough time, the bug
is dismissed for a new feature, fixing it might be very risky or it may not be worth it because it occurs
infrequently or has a work around where the user can prevent or avoid the bug. Making a wrong
decision can be disastrous. • Review competitive products. Gaining a good insight into various
products of the same kind and getting to know their functionality and general behavior will help you
design different test cases and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your application. This
will also enable you to add value and suggest new features and enhancements to your product. •
Follow standards and processes. As a tester, your need to conform to the standards and guidelines
set by the organization. These standards pertain to reporting hierarchy, coding, documentation,
testing, reporting bugs, using automated tools etc. Beginners Guide To Software Testing Page 11 2.
Introduction Software Life Cycle The software life cycle typically includes the following: requirements
analysis, design, coding, testing, installation and maintenance. In between, there can be a
requirement to provide Operations and support activities for the product. Requirements Analysis.
Software organizations provide solutions to customer requirements by developing appropriate
software that best suits their specifications. Thus, the life of software starts with origin of
requirements. Very often, these requirements are vague, emergent and always subject to change.
Analysis is performed to - To conduct in depth analysis of the proposed project, to evaluate for
technical feasibility, to discover how to partition the system, to identify which areas of the
requirements need to be elaborated from the customer, to identify the impact of changes to the
requirements, to identify which requirements should be allocated to which components. Design and
Specifications. The outcome of requirements analysis is the requirements specification. Using this,
the overall design for the intended software is developed. Activities in this phase - Perform
Architectural Design for the software, Design Database (If applicable), Design User Interfaces, Select
or Develop Algorithms (If Applicable), Perform Detailed Design. Coding. The development process
tends to run iteratively through these phases rather than linearly; several models (spiral, waterfall
etc.) have been proposed to describe this process. Activities in this phase - Create Test Data, Create
Source, Generate Object Code, Create Operating Documentation, Plan Integration, Perform
Integration Testing. The process of using the developed system with the intent to find errors.
Defects/flaws/bugs found at this stage will be sent back to the developer for a fix and have to be re-
tested. This phase is iterative as long as the bugs are fixed to meet the requirements. Activities in this
phase - Plan Verification and Validation, Execute Verification and validation Tasks, Collect and Analyze
Metric Data, Plan Testing, Develop Test Requirements, Execute Tests Installation. The so developed
and tested software will finally need to be installed at the client place. Careful planning has to be
done to avoid problems to the user afte

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