Software testing: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:11, 3 October 2024

Revision as of 11:42, 9 October 2024

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== History ==

[[Glenford J. Myers]] initially introduced the separation of [[debugging]] from testing in 1979.<ref name="Myers 1979">{{Cite book |last=Myers |first=Glenford J. |url=https://archive.org/details/artofsoftwaretes00myer |title=The Art of Software Testing |publisher=John Wiley and Sons |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-471-04328-7 |author-link=Glenford Myers}}</ref> Although his attention was on breakage testing ("A successful test case is one that detects an as-yet undiscovered error."<ref name="Myers 1979" />{{rp|16}}), it illustrated the desire of the software engineering community to separate fundamental development activities, such as debugging, from that of verification. This distinction laid the groundwork for [[Philosophy|modern testing]] methodologies, where debugging focuses on identifying and resolving specific issues, while testing is aimed at validating overall system behavior and ensuring quality.

== Goals ==

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=== Finding bugs ===

Software testing typically includes handling software bugs {{endash}} a defect in the [[source code|code]] that causes an undesirable result.<ref name="IEEEglossary">{{Citation |date=1990 |publisher=IEEE |doi=10.1109/IEEESTD.1990.101064 |isbn=978-1-55937-067-7 |title=IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology }}</ref>{{rp|31}} Bugs generally slow testing progress and involve [[programmer]] assistance to [[debug]] and fix. Proactively identifying these bugs early in the [[Software bug|development]] process helps reduce costs and prevent larger issues down the line.

Not all defects cause a failure. For example, a defect in [[dead code]] will not be considered a failure.