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Web Software Testing: Guarantee that the Web Software is purposeful and safe

By pfhometheater | February 2, 2010

The software development life cycle contains numerous stages. Software performance testing is one of the significant phases within the software development cycle (SDCL). Different types of testing are employed in each phase beginning with development till it reaches the market. From the initial development of the application until it reaches the maketing phase different testing types will be used. In addition, all the different versions of the software have to be tested before they are delivered to either the costumer or the target market.

There are many different classes of software and software for web applications is one of them. The importance of this type of software has increased rapidly since the arrival of the Internet. The majority of the security threats start off from Internet and it is necessary to make sure that the web software is carefully tested prior to releasing to the costumer.

The time available to develop and test web software is always limited. While the web software is being designed and developed it is also being tested by the testings engineers using different types of tests. The different types of tests can be grouped in code testing, load testing, compatibility testing, functional testing and regression testing.

The web software is usually released by means of a model of software release known as alpha/beta testing.This is a simulated or actual operational test conducted by potential users or an independent test team at the developers’ site. Because during alpha testing the software is actually still being developed only small modules of the software are tested during this stage. Alpha testing is frequently employed for off-the-shelf software as a method of internal acceptance testing. After being alpha tested software will only be released when all the main functional sections have been both coded and tested.

After the alpha testing is completed the software is permitted to undergo the beta phase of testing. In beta testing the web software I completely built. The software is made available for use to a restricted number of customers intended for software testing previous to the official release. In case of website design it is easy to put together the various pages as the website design uses HTML. So the alpha/beta technique is generally not used for website development. This means they can build and test one page at a time. After completion they can move onto the next one, with each page independent of each other.

In code testing the software testing or development engineer examines the codes for software bugs. It’s essential for the software to be free of bugs because the web development process is very quick. Paired-programming is one of the favourite methods that highly qualified testers can use to produce bug free coding.

Paired programming is a software development method in which two programmers work together at one keyboard. The driver types in the code while the observer or navigator reviews each line. The judgment behind taking up this method is the following. The Economist proclaims that, “Laurie Williams of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has shown that paired programmers are only 15% slower than two independent individual programmers, but produce 15% fewer bugs.”

As the development process continues the software is tested repeatedly. By the time it’s finally released the software is free of bugs. Load testing is done to see at what point the application fails or the performance reduces when under heavy loads such as multiple users on or heavy server traffic. This type of testing will help to arrive at statistics such as how many users the site will sustain at the same time, the quantity of communication it will hold and the reaction time under various circumstances.

Compatibility testing needs to be carried out to asses the software compatibility with the software and hardware that it may interact with. This includes testing compatibility with operating systems, database, browsers, peripherals and backwards compatibility.

Functional testing confirms its specifications and accurately performs all of the required tasks. This involves doing a series of tests that perform a feature by feature validation of behavior, utilizing a wide range of normal and erroneous input data. Regression testing is performed to ensure that enhancements, defect repairs or other changes to the software have not disrupted any existing functionality.

When interative methodology is used to develop software regression testing is crucial. Iterative software development is a method in which new functionality is added to existing software. In this case one should make sure that the new addition has not affected any of the existing functionality. Regression testing is done to find out any of such instances. The above mentioned methods are essential tests to complete the web software testing.

Written by Patrik Karlsson - Projectors For Home Theater

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