Getting an Insight Into The Term ‘Testing’
Testing as an object of study can be viewed from various purely technical points of view. However, the most important aspects in the study of testing are its costs and the mindset of the developer. In other words, the test adequacy in a given software program is primarily determined by those who will test it and what frame of mind they have, and only then certain technological factors are taken into account. Therefore, before we move on to technical problems, let us turn our attention to these issues.
The economic and psychological aspects of software testing have not been thoroughly studied so far. Nevertheless, it is necessary to understand the fundamentals of economics and testing.
At first sight, you may find it trivial to interpret the term “testing” though, in fact, it is crucial to convey the correct meeting of this concept. The need for definition of this term arises from the fact that most experts use it incorrectly, and, as a result, the testing is done poorly. For example, there are the following definitions: “Testing is a process of demonstrating that no errors exist in the program,” “The purpose of testing is to confirm that the program correctly performs its functions”, “Testing is a process that determines the degree to which the product fulfills its intended use “. Software qa company offers comprehensive qa testing techniques and tools to improve web, mobile and desktop applications.
These definitions describe the opposite of what testing really means, so they are not correct. Well, we will get back to the definitions later, in our next articles, but now suppose that if you are testing the program, its cost should be increased by adding some new value to it (since testing is a chargeable procedure and we would like to have a good return on this testing investment, wouldn’t we? This can be achieved if we increase the cost of the program itself).
Increment in the cost means improving the reliability of the software and enhancing its quality otherwise the user will be displeased with the quality-related expenses. Improving the reliability or the quality of the program entails detecting and fixing defects present in it. Therefore, testing of the program is performed in order not to understand that it is working, but rather vice versa – testing process begins with the assumption that the product contains errors (moreover, this assumption is true for almost any software app), and then their maximum possible number of errors is already caught. Thus, there is simple and the most acceptable definition:
Testing is the process of executing a program to uncover errors.