So what is software testing we were talking about earlier? Its meaning lies in a few words:
– Investigation: critical thinking, ability to ask difficult questions and notice small things that could mean big problems are typical for an investigator and a software tester.
– Exploration: a software tester is endlessly exploring the code discovering new things to test as they appear in the process of coding. One can never know all the answers before he starts.
– Mitigation: preventive reduction of the potential issues, risks and other things able to cause failure are one of the tester’s responsibilities.
– Value: unpredictable and creative, testing is often misunderstood by the developers, but it’s still valuable not only for code checks but for other stages of product creation, from ideas and design to infrastructure and processes.
– Communication: good communication between testers, developers and users is the key to the timely detection of contradictions between user’s expectations, set requirements and development process.
– Infinity: a tester can never know he’s currently testing exactly the parameters that could contain bugs. The testing never ends as each non-trivial product provides many possible values to be tested.
In its turn, the quality assurance (QA) notion includes activities, ensuring quality in the software engineering process. QA preventively eliminates the possible pitfalls of the software development process and makes sure it follows the established procedures.
Software testing can’t be separated from quality assurance. Both of them have to be performed simultaneously, thus ensuring the top-notch final product quality and smooth development process.
About the Author: Vasili Pascal
