Understanding the Software Tester’s Job

In 2013, the global software testing services market was valued at US$41.84 billion. Estimates have now come in, and according to the Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB), the market’s value will have reached US$70.98 billion by 2018, nearly double the 2013 value. MSTB projects the annual growth rate at an average of 11.15%.

A Cyberattack to Protect From Cyberattacks

If companies want to protect their systems from a hacker, they have to think like one. Nothing puts a company’s IT infrastructure to the test more intensively than a simulated attack. Find vulnerabilities, fix them, launch an attack, and repeat. It’s the learning curve for basically every existing IT infrastructure today.

The Dilemma of Bug-Free Software

Resolving software bugs is arguably the most important task of a software developer. Only by adequate software testing can developers find bugs in the system and fix these errors. However, with one fix often comes another bug, and the linear process becomes a cycle. It's possible that these seemingly new bugs weren't caught during the pre-release phase.

Research shows that a well-equipped software developer can catch 95 percent of known bugs prior to a code's release. The catch rate has remained somewhat stagnant over the past two decades despite advancements in software development. While a bug-free release is achievable, it has proven to be as rare as a blue moon.

Your App and the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things—no, it’s not a random phrase—is a scenario in which people, animals, and even objects are provided with unique tools and the ability to transfer data over a network without the need for human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is something that app creators should constantly be aware of. With sensors and identifiers embedded practically everywhere, the world is becoming increasingly connected, and if your app isn’t able to keep up, well, that’s ultimately your fault.

The Code-Driven Approach to Automated Testing

Automated testing saves software developers the trouble of looking for bugs manually. Think of it as a bug zapper that does a better job of killing bugs than a fly swatter. However, the zapper is only one in a set of other common bug control solutions. The same can be said of automated testing with three well-known approaches.

First is the code-driven test (CDT). As far as the workflow goes, CDT is a "cycle of cycles" where the tester undertakes several processes and backtracks if the test fails or passes in one of the processes. The cycle can only be broken if the development stops. Here's a more convenient way to view CDT.

Automated Software Testing: Questions to Ask

For software developers, choosing between automated software testing and manual software testing to assess their program’s quality is an easy one, especially when they are under strict deadlines. After all, automated software testing gives software developers a clear picture of all the bugs or defects in the program in an efficient manner. Before any testing commences, however, it would be appropriate to ask these questions.

Who will perform the tests?

Before anything else, the party responsible for performing the automated tests should be identified. While software developers are technically capable of testing their own programs, they may not always have an objective point of view. For this reason, it is best to relegate the task to a third-party automated testing solutions provider.

What Part of Your Test System Should You Automate?

Choosing the right sections to automate in your test system will display the biggest benefits to your results and costs. In addition, know that the automation tools you decide to implement will rely heavily on what you choose to automate. With that in mind, here are three key thoughts for you to consider:

Tester skills

Automation requires an immense talent for writing scripts. Thus, a person with extensive software development and programming skills is an absolute necessity if you want to automate processes. Look for an individual or third-party company with plenty of experience in a specific development language and strong object-oriented programming (OOP) knowledge.

Passing ART: On Record

There will always be instances when you’d stop and think whether or not you've done everything on the list. Some jobs may never ever be concluded, such as doing the dishes in a 24-hour diner, but there will be breaks. You may be finished with washing the dishes today, but you'll do it again tomorrow, and someone else would be doing it in your place while you’re off-shift. Even if the diner transitioned to a banana leaf-plate, it’d only change the task, not the perpetuity of the task.

Understanding Software Development

Many of today’s industries depend on software to ensure that their employees accomplish necessary tasks in an efficient and timely manner. Software requirements vary per industry, but the cycle of development is the same across all industries. Here’s a brief look at how software is born:

Identifying the needs

A company has to identify its needs and goals first. This means that a designated leader has to schedule a meeting with all concerned staff members and outline the features they want from the software. For instance, a customer service center would likely expect a program with a search feature, where they can easily look up and update customers’ details.

Three Handy Software Development Tips

Worldwide smartphone shipments reached a milestone when it topped one billion units in 2013. Some of these units likely ended in the hands of your employees and partners. The business world is increasingly going mobile, which means pretty soon, you’re going to need to develop customized smartphone apps for your business as it expands. Here are three practical software development tips that can benefit your efforts.

Learn the language

Software companies try to build market share by using programming languages and tools that developers are currently using. For instance, Windows Mobile allows developers to utilize existing Visual Studio and .NET development skills and server setups to expand their applications to mobile devices.

Test, Rinse, Repeat

With the tens of thousands of lines of code that go into modern software and the inconsistencies that can sometimes occur when programs are compiled to machine language, it can be very hard to guarantee the integrity of almost any software. For organizations that rely on the quality, reliability, and security of their software, no hole can go unpatched. To achieve this, rigorous software testing is an absolute necessity.

One of the most difficult situations any piece of software can undergo is extreme load. With the ubiquity of the Internet and sheer computing capacity computers have today, situations of extreme load are no longer very uncommon. Denial-of-service attacks happen almost on a day-to-day basis, and software bottlenecks can occur when poorly optimized code is fed so much data too quickly.

Passing AST: Multiplatform

Some believe the graphical user interface (GUI) replaced the command line as the premiere computing system. While the GUI is much easier to use, thanks to its WYSIWYG system, the venerable DOS is still in use among programmers today. DOS succeeds where GUI fails, and vice versa.

This puts one of the most important requirements of passing automated software testing (AST) into perspective. Any program that can run smoothly in a GUI environment must also do the same in a non-GUI environment. In other words, the program must be able to operate in virtually any protocol. Software testers call this "backend testing."

Software Testing Pro-Tips

No matter how advanced a device or machine’s components are, it will be little more than a paperweight if the software running it is faulty or bug-filled. Hence, software testing is a must since glitches can cause expensive or potentially life-threatening problems to occur.

To catch all the kinks in a new program, be sure to take heed of these tips:

Involve Testers from the Start

Software creation should not be the sole domain of developers. To create the best programs possible, be sure to involve software testers from the get go. That way, they have a deep understanding of the code, allowing them to perform more thorough tests.

Testing Software Systems Before Market Launch

Automated software testing (AST) defines seven key requirements for military and commercial software to pass with flying colors. It may be all Greek to many, but these requirements allow today's technology to be more versatile and handle more processing power at any given time. These traits become more significant as industries grow more dependent on technology.

The first of the seven requires software to be non-intrusive to the System Under Test (SUT), a separate test that determines whether or not the software is performing its intended tasks. Think of the SUT as a fancy term for "beta-testing." Over the course of the SUT, the developers find bugs in the system to fix before releasing the finished product.

Software Testing Methods

Bugs don’t just exist in the wild—they reside in software programs, too. These glitches causes a plethora of issues, from program crashes, to lost data, or even rocket launch errors, as in the case of the European Ariane 5.

That’s why programmers have to test software before releasing or using it to catch these virtual vermin. In general, they utilize three methods to test a software in development:

Software Issues are Easy to Fix with Testing

In some ways, creating a software program is much like writing a news story. The first draft isn’t always spot-on, and even subsequent drafts still require editing. Defects found in computer programs can only be ironed out through regular bug tracking and troubleshooting, though some defects may still persist if an automated testing procedure is not performed.

Why Software Testing Is Important

Manufacturers typically designate a group to do a product test before the market release of a new product. For instance, a soda company develops a new flavor. Before it is mass-produced and shipped into stores, the company does a focus group discussion first, where a random group of people do a taste test and then give their opinions on the new flavored drink.

Similarly, testing should be a standard operating procedure for software development companies before they turn over the product to their clients. The tests will help the engineers and developers detect flaws or “bugs” in their work and resolve them before deployment. They have two methods to test their software: manual and automated.

Signs You Could Benefit from Automated Testing

Automated testing is a widely accepted practice all over the world. In fact, a wide variety of industries make use of automated testing to boost the overall productivity of their respective companies.

Of course, automated testing requires you to invest time and money in the creation of the testing system, something that you may not be too eager to do. If you experience the following situations, however, investing in automated testing is bound to work wonders for you:

The Inevitable Need for Software Testing

In computer communication, software refers to anything that can be stored electronically. However, this is just one definition that is meant to tell the electronic components of a computer from the physical ones. Another definition of software is computer instructions or data. This software is what makes a computer operational.

Software Problems Solved by Automated Testing

Creating seamless, bug-free computer software in one go is virtually impossible without software testing. In fact, a National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) study said that about 25 to 90 percent of the budget for software development is usually spent on testing alone. That said, even software tests can encounter problems that prevent them from detecting and fixing software bugs, thus affecting the performance of software-reliant systems.