To a layman, when the word “bug” is mentioned, what comes to mind is probably an insect of some sort, however, in the world of IT, a bug is a defect, fault, or flaw in any computer software or hardware system. This often causes a malfunction and results in the system producing unintended results. More often than not, bugs stem from errors in designing or writing the source code of a program. Producing a bug-free application is a very difficult task to achieve, though software developers strive to make their developments as bug-free as possible. Some bugs may cause minor inconveniences causing an application to crash, while others may cause severe harm or even death in adverse cases. A typical example is the bugs that controlled the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine being directly responsible for the death of patients in the 1980s. The act of removing bugs from a program or application is called debugging.
Software testing
Once a program has been built, an investigation needs to be carried out to provide stakeholders with vital information as regards the functionality of the software. This is also to see if the program meets the requirements for its development. One crucial aspect of software testing is that it includes the process of executing a program with the intention of detecting bugs. Software testing is carried out by a software testing services company. An example is the Performance lab software testing company. The job of testing is one that must be carried out frequently as when one bug is identified and fixed, it can expose other bugs or even create new ones. It provides objective information as regards the quality of software and potential risks of failure to stakeholders.
Methods of software testing
There are many different approaches to software testing. A few of them are as follows:
Static testing: Static testing basically involves verification and proofreading. Source codes structures are inspected, syntax and data flow are also checked in static testing. It checks if the program is being developed right or not. Walkthroughs, inspections, reviews are referred to as static testing.
Dynamic testing: Dynamic testing, as the name quite rightly implies, involves running the program itself to test certain sections of written code. It is called validation in software testing, and it ratifies if the program we have built is right or not.
Passive testing: This testing approach involves observing the behavior of the system without interaction with the program. Patterns of behavior are monitored, and these infer decisions.
Approaches to software testing
Exploratory approach: It is an approach to software testing that involves learning by the tester himself, test design, execution, and result interpretation. Testing is done without any specific plans, thus test cases are not scripted before testing as the testers check the system on the fly.
Box approach (white-box, black-box, and grey box testing):
White-box testing: This is also known as glass-box or clear-box testing, and it involves testing of internal code structures of the software. The source code is majorly used to design test cases.
Black-box testing: This is also known as functional or behavioral testing, and it involves evaluation of the end-user functionality of the software without looking at the internal implementation. No programming knowledge is required for this approach.
Grey-box testing: This basically involves both black and white box testing.