What Are The Software Testing Concepts?

Prior to understanding the software testing concepts, you must be aware of the software testing procedure and its various functions. Any and every new software product is invariably subjected to some form of software testing process for the following reasons.

1. The software system developed should be free from errors and should not cause any malfunctioning of the system at the manufacturer’s site
2. The software developed by any individual or organization is bound to have bugs which cannot be found at the programming stage. Such errors can occur due to miscommunication or no communication, complexity of software, errors in programming, changing specifications, time pressures etc. Such errors can come out during testing and not on live use.

The software testing process ensures that the product is credible and the quality of software is high.

A common misconception many people hold is that the goal of testing is to eliminate all bugs. The bug is defined as a defect, or a function that does not work as defined in the Requirements Definition document. But in many cases, there is no Requirements Definition; the RD is quite general and does not go to the level of defining all operational functions. So if there is no RD, or only a high level RD, it is not possible to even know what the low level functions should do exactly. Management decides when testing should stop and production begin; this is not decided by testers. In other words, Management can take a decision to put the product in the market even with certain defects stating that the probability of going wrong with such errors is low. The job of a software tester is to find defects; the goal of the testing project is to reduce the risk, not produce perfect software.

Every system or project has a "life cycle": a birth, life, and death.  The software testing concepts also have similar stages in its life. These are listed below.

	Birth – Vision Statement
	Basic needs – Business Requirements
	Specific needs – Functional Requirements
	Detailed design – System design document
	Making it – Development
	Basic testing – Unit testing
	Testing related things – System testing
	Bringing parts together – Integration testing ( completion of theoretical phase)
	Is it what we wanted – Acceptance testing
	Use it – Production
	Death – De-commissioned

The software testing has to follow the above stages of development. In addition to debugging, the software testing finds out whether the new product under development will be acceptable to the target audience. This particular concept of the software testing process is also a vital one.

There are a number of websites which give details on software testing test cases and you are advised to browse through them on the Internet.