Software Testing: Is It Really Necessary?

“To err is human” goes the famous saying. Yes! We are human and not God. So it is very natural for us to commit mistakes which can be reverted as well. While developing a software, it is but natural to write flawed codes which will give rise to bugs. But these mistakes can be rectified too, thanks to software testing. Software testing is the process by which the bugs and shortcomings of the software which has been developed are caught and hence rectified for the creation of a better software altogether. It goes without saying that software testing is one of the most important part of the software development life cycle and is absolutely necessary.

As most of the mistakes in software development are developed due to erroneous assumptions and blind spots, so detecting your own mistakes can be impossible at times. So software testing does the job for you. Usually, software testing is done by a different set of people, with different skills, than the ones developing the same and hence the mistakes are easily detected.

Following are some of the points which make software testing absolutely necessary.

1:: It helps in detection of all the bugs and glitches that were created when the coding or development of software was in process.

2:: Software testing is necessary because it helps in betterment of the software and hence helps in increasing customer reliability and satisfaction of the customers.

3:: The best way to gain the confidence of the customers is by providing them with a quality product and software testing helps you to create such products which are high in term of quality as they have been already checked for bugs which could have caused the error.

4:: Another necessity of software testing lies in the fact to check whether the software is delivering the desired results for which it had been created in the first place. Delivering a high quality product also reduces the maintenance cost of the same, thus ultimately reducing the overall cost of the process.

5:: Software testing brings forth the stress level and optimum performance issues of the software, which can be improved upon if any kind of lacking is noticed. This will help in improving the performance of the app on a whole.

6:: Software testing helps in reduction of post production error rectification. Once the software is up for mass production or has been shipped to the stores, it becomes very expensive to recall the product to revert the errors. Software testing helps in prevention of this loss.

7:: Software testing helps you to deliver quality product in a short period of time so that you can hold on to your customer base and thus make improvement in the business.

Although these are just a few points which emphasizes the necessity of software testing in the software development cycle, the whole scenario is beyond the description of words. The immense importance of software testing is slowly being discovered and more and more companies are taking heed of the topic. If the various tests available are taken into consideration, then a software can be made absolutely flawless with the help of software testing. It also helps in the betterment of performance.

Now that you have a hang of all the necessities, you should absolutely include software testing in the product development cycle.

Mindfire Testing Practice has a unique combination of skilled software engineering & experienced testing teams with proven expertise in testing tools and methodologies for a wide range of solutions. Should you be in need of the quality testing services at Mindfire Solutions just drop in a mail with your requirements to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

Will Automated Testing Replace Manual Software Testing in Future?

Software testing is, in a way, the pillar of success when it comes to software development. The testing procedure starts even before the developmental test, with the help of the feasibility testing process to check the plausibility of the software and ends with the beta test which is done after the whole developmental life cycle has been completed.

As the importance of software testing in the software development life cycle becomes more and more evident, the myths related to the same topic are clearing up. In this age of technology, everything is being automated. Manual processes are being replaced by automation and it is a huge myth which states that manual testing of software will be replaced by the automated testing procedure in the near future. However, it is very obvious that both manual and automated testing procedures hold their importance in the software testing life cycle.

But before we get into the replacement myth, let us get a fair idea of what actually automated and manual testing are. Automated testing of software is nothing but a method by which certain coded scripts will check the software for the performance and bugs which were fitted in the code. Manual testing on the other hand comprises of a lot more than just conducting some tests. It also deals with planning the whole process and documentations of the available results.

Companies providing automated testing services may come up with certain written codes which test your software in a mechanical manner. But it also helps in saving time and money. In cases like regression testing where you check the integration of existing system with newly added features or smoke testing where you perform basic level testing of the software, automated testing is a boon. Automated testing should be conducted anywhere which requires same kind of scripting just to see whether the system is performing as per requirement. This will save the hassle of performing step by step manual testing of the system.

But manual testing has its own importance. The primary job of a manual tester is to create the testing plan so that maximum test coverage is achieved in order to provide the customers with as bug free software as possible. There are certain parts of the software which simply can’t be tested without the manual testing procedure. They are as follows:

1. Functional Testing.
2. Usability Testing.
3. Requirements Analysis.
4. Tacit Test Procedures.
5. Domain Testing (or data testing).
6. Risk Testing.
7. Sympathetic Testing.
8. Lateral Thinking.
9. Bug Investigation.
10. Perspective/Prospective.
11. Consistency Oracles.
12. Playing.
13. Claims Testing.
14. Galumphing.

These are just the tests that have to be done in the manual process. Apart from this, manual testing also has to record and analyse the testing results for future use of the same.

After weighing the scenario, it is pretty obvious that although automated testing procedures have made a marked progress, it will never be able to completely abolish the manual testing procedure as automated testing lacks one major thing that appears to be a huge advantage of the manual testing and that is brain. The trick lies in balancing the two kinds of testing and rip the advantages of both ultimately gaining a super good software as a result.

Mindfire Solutions has the largest number of certified QA testing professionals in India and has been providing quality software testing services since the last 15 years. If you would like to avail our expert testing services just send in your query to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

10 Topmost Reasons Why You Should Use Selenium

So far as the software industry is concerned, after any product arrives at the manual testing stage, almost all the organizations consider automated testing to cut down on the cost that manual testing involves. For any project, companies are rapidly inclining towards open source automated testing tools rather than investing in commercial testing tools which come at a high price. With no investment for licensing, open source testing instruments come with significant features that enable the convenient automation of testing of web portals and software applications. Selenium is by far one of the most popular automated testing tools for websites. With the passage of time, Selenium is becoming more and more popular and it is the most preferred choice of organizations and automation testers for automated testing of web applications, applicable for the functionality as well as the GUI.

There are a number of reasons why organizations prefer to use Selenium for automated testing. Here we will discuss the top 10 reasons. But before that, let us have an overview of the available test packages and modes of Selenium.

Test Packages of Selenium

Selenium comprises a package of diverse test components mainly consisting of four main tools. Each of the tools has a definite role to play in supporting the development of automated testing pertaining to a web application.

• Selenium IDE: This is in fact an add-on feature for Mozilla Firefox. This is generally used for playback, record, debugging and edit of selenium scripts.

• Selenium RC: This is alternatively known as Selenium Remote Control and is utilized to run tests across various systems and browsers.

• Selenium Grid: It is capable of running diverse cases of Selenium RC at the same time. Selenium Grid facilitates distribution of tests across different browsers and machines so that parallel execution of the tests can be carried out.

• Selenium Webdriver: This is the latest version of Selenium which comprises a number of Selenium APIs.
  

Modes of Selenium

For execution of test suites and test cases, Selenium comes with the following three modes.

• Record-Playback mode: Within this mode, Selenium IDE can only be used for recording test scenarios with regards to test cases pertaining to Firefox. This offers a brilliant way to start off with writing tests as well as grouping the same together in order to build the test suite. It is possible to export the tests that are recorded to several programming languages; hence they can be tweaked and put within the testing framework. These test suites and test cases can then be replayed in order to check the validations and verifications or transported to Selenium Grid or RG for more tweaking.

• Selenium Remote Control Mode: Here, Selenium starts off manifold browsers one after the other, following which it runs the test cases that have been recorded and saved in the preferred language. This promotes the enhancement of the test cases with the help of programming and looping techniques with the aim to cover all the necessary checks and test scenarios.

• Test Runner Mode: This mode involves the recording and replaying of test cases as HTML tables. It constitutes just another method for execution of Selenium RC and Selenium IDE test cases. Here, the test result reports are checked in cases they have not been already formatted.
  

10 Reasons Why Selenium is Great to Use

• Taking the other automation tools into consideration, Selenium has the capability to operate on almost every OS.

• Selenium is an open source testing tool and hence it serves for cost-effective automation testing.

• Selenium supports multiple languages such as Python, Pearl, Ruby, PHP, .NET (C#) and Java. You are required to be comfortable in just a single language in order to operate Selenium.

• One highly beneficial feature of Selenium is that the language used for building the program is independent of the language that the web application or website is using. This implies that the test script can be developed in any of the languages that Selenium supports.

• This testing tool supports a range of browsers like Opera, Safari, Chrome, IE 6, 7, 8 and Mozilla Firefox.

• Selenium has a very dynamic developer community that is backed by Google.

• So far as Selenium is concerned, we have a number of robust methods for location of elements such as CSS, Xpath, DOM, and so on.

• With Selenium, it is convenient to implement frameworks that revolve around Object oriented programming like Keyword Driven, Data driven and Hybrid.

• Selenium provides support for integration of open source frameworks like TestNG, JUnit, NUnit and so on.

• With the use of Selenium, it is possible to execute simultaneous tests leveraging various browsers on various machines. This is turn cuts down the time for test execution when a large project is in progress.

With its useful features, Selenium automation testing serves as a key tool for browser compatibility testing as well as system functional testing. It is indeed strong when compared to the available tools for automation testing and is very simple and flexible.

We provide selenium web application testing services. If you would like to discuss with an expert selenium tester from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.