Software Testing Fundamentals

Testing

• Testing is the practice of running a program to discover mistakes.
• It can only prove the existence of bugs, not their absence.

Verification and Validation

• Verification is the method of proving the correctness of a program by checking work-products against specified requirements.
• It is also known as static testing and is done before validation testing.
• Quality assurance comes under verification testing.
• Validation is the method of discovering mistakes by running software in a specific world.
• It is also known as dynamic testing and is done after verification testing.
• Quality control comes under validation testing.

Unit Testing

• It is a testing technique that focuses on individual modules.
• It is concerned with the functional correctness of standalone modules.
• It aims to exercise a high percentage of internal paths.
• Its main aim is to isolate each unit of the system to identify, analyze, and fix defects.
• It is used to find defects at an early stage of testing.
• It is normally performed by software developers or their peers.

Integration Testing

• It is the second level of software testing, which comes after unit testing.
• Units or individual components of the software are tested in a group.
• The focus is to expose defects at the time of interaction between integrated components or units.
• It consists of two types: Top-down and Bottom-up Integration testing.
• Top-down integration testing involves testing higher-level modules first and then lower-level modules.
• Bottom-up integration testing involves testing lower-level modules first and then higher-level modules.

Alpha Testing

• It is done when product development is nearly complete.
• Slight changes in design can be made after conducting alpha testing.
• It is performed in lab surroundings by the developers.
• Developers test the software from the user's point of view to detect problems.

Beta Testing

• It is the second stage of testing a product before release.
• A sample of the released product with minimum features is given to the intended audience for trying out.
• It is carried out by real users in a real environment.
• It allows targeted customers to dive into the product's design, working, interface, functionality, etc.

Recovery Testing

• It is a type of system testing that aims to test whether a system can recover from failures or not.
• The technique involves failing the system and then verifying that the system recovery is performed properly.
• It is important to ensure that a system is fault-tolerant and can recover well from failures.

Explore the basics of software testing, including its goals, methods, and concepts like verification, validation, and debugging.