The software development life cycle (SDLC) is composed of various stages. Software testing is an important stage within the software development cycle (SDCL). A variety of testing methods are used beginning with the application's development until it gets the marketing stage. These methods are employed during various stages of the SDLC. Moreover there are different varieties of the software that needs to be tested before it is released to the costumer.
There are many different classes of software and software for web applications is one of them. The importance of this type of software has increased rapidly since the arrival of the Internet. Because of the high impact Internet has on our daily lives any web software is carefully tested before launching in order to reduce the associated security risks that originate from the use of the Internet.
Even though the testing of web software is vital, there is at all times rush in building and testing those application due to time constraints.There are different methods that the test engineers use to test this software. They are code testing, [load testing], compatibility testing, functional testing and regression testing.
The web software is usually released by means of a model of software release known as alpha/beta testing.The first stage or alpha testing takes place at the developers' site where either potential users/customers or a purposely created indepent test team will interact with a simulated or actual operational version of the software being tested. Because during alpha testing the software is actually still being developed only small modules of the software are tested during this stage. Alpha testing is frequently employed for off-the-shelf software as a method of internal acceptance testing. Software that passed the alpha test will not be released till all the major functionalities of the software are built and tested.
Beta testing is done by a limited amount of users that can use the software before its official release takes place. In case of website design it is easy to put together the various pages as the website design uses HTML. So the alpha/beta technique is generally not used for website development. This imply that it is possible to build and test one page at a time and later go to the next one with independent testing for each one.
In code testing the software testing or development engineer examines the codes for software bugs. It’s essential for the software to be free of bugs because the web development process is very quick. Paired-programming is one of the popular methods used by highly qualified technicians to achieve error free coding .
Two coders working at a single workstation it is at the core of paired programming. The developer typing the code is called the driver while the programmer that checks every line of code as it is produced is called the observer or the navigator. This strategy is appealing because fewer bugs are produced. According to The Economist, "Laurie Williams of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has shown that paired programmers are only 15% slower than two independent individual programmers, but produce 15% fewer bugs.”
As the development process continues the software is tested repeatedly. By the time it's finally released the software is free of bugs. Load testing is done to see at what point the application fails or the performance reduces when under heavy loads such as multiple users on or heavy server traffic. This type of testing will help to arrive at statistics such as how many users the site will sustain at the same time, the quantity of communication it will hold and the reaction time under various circumstances.
Compatibility testing evaluates the application’s compatibility with the computing environment like the operating system, database, browser compatibility, backwards compatibility, computing capacity of the hardware platform and compatibility of the peripherals.
The testing used to validate the conformance to specifications and requirements is the Functional testing. This testing involves performing a sequence of tests to validate the behavior of the software, feature by feature using a large number of normal and abnormal data. Regression testing is carried out to check that any changes made to the code in order to enhance it or to fix defects has not affected any functionality.
Regression [testing] is very important whenever there’s iterative development of software. In iterative programming, new modules are added to the core module to increase the functionality provided by the application, this needs to be done with the certainty that the added module does not affect the original functionality of the running module. All the types of test mentioned above are necessary to provide complete web software testing.
Posts
