Research and Development on Software Testing Techniques and Tools

Testing Outlook

Testing outlook has an impact on the software testing process. Consider the following definition:

This definition sounds good, but the person who developed the software will only try to show that the software works correctly. This is the typical psychology of testing. The software will work correctly for the inputs that are given by that person which will obtain correct results. If some other input was given, the software will obtain wrong results which is not acceptable in a commercial environment.

Now consider this definition:

If the aim of the test engineer is to prove that the software does not work, then the process can be considered as good. If the software performs well, then you can say that the software is very reliable. If the software works efficiently, after some days of testing, it does not mean that the software has no bugs at all.

So the definition would be:

Verification and Validation

While going for testing, the two terms verification and validation have to be differentiated. Barry Boehm defines these terms as follows:

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  Verification: “Are we Building the product right?”

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  Validation: “Are we building the right product?”

Verification is done by the development team to ensure that the software is as per the specifications in the SRS document. It is to check whether the software conforms to specifications. Validation is to check whether the software meets the customer expectations. It is carried out with the involvement of the client.