01 Testing Fundamentals

What is Software Testing? Introduction, Basics & Importance

What is Software Testing?

Software testing is an activity to check whether the actual results match the expected results and to ensure that the software system is Defect free. It involves execution of a software component or system component to evaluate one or more properties of interest.

Software testing also helps to identify errors, gaps or missing requirements in contrary to the actual requirements. It can be either done manually or using automated tools. Some prefer saying Software testing as a white box and Black Box Testing.

This tutorial introduces testing software to the audience and justifies its  importance

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Why is Software Testing Important?

Testing is important because software bugs could be expensive or even dangerous. Software bugs can potentially cause monetary and human loss, history is full of such examples.

• In April 2015, Bloomberg terminal in London crashed due to software glitch affected more than 300,000 traders on financial markets. It forced the government to postpone a 3bn pound debt sale.
• Nissan cars have to recall over 1 million cars from the market due to software failure in the airbag sensory detectors. There has been reported two accident due to this software failure.
• Starbucks was forced to close about 60 percent of stores in the U.S and Canada due to software failure in its POS system. At one point store served coffee for free as they unable to process the transaction.
• Some of the Amazon’s third party retailers saw their product price is reduced to 1p due to a software glitch. They were left with heavy losses.
• Vulnerability in Window 10. This bug enables users to escape from security sandboxes through a flaw in the win32k system.
• In 2015 fighter plane F-35 fell victim to a software bug, making it unable to detect targets correctly.
• China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed due to a software bug on April 26, 1994, killing 264 innocent live
• In 1985, Canada's Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned due to software bug and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients, leaving 3 people dead and critically injuring 3 others.
• In April of 1999, a software bug caused the failure of a $1.2 billion military satellite launch, the costliest accident in history
• In may of 1996, a software bug caused the bank accounts of 823 customers of a major U.S. bank to be credited with 920 million US dollars.

Types of Software Testing

Typically Testing is classified into three categories.

• Functional Testing
• Non-Functional Testing or Performance Testing
• Maintenance (Regression and Maintenance)

This is not the complete list as there are more than 150 types of testing types and still adding. Also, note that not all testing types are applicable to all projects but depend on nature & scope of the project.

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