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What is Testing?

• involves the execution of software and the observation of the program behavior or outcome, compared to expected requirements / specifications
• The demonstration of the validity of software at each stage in the system development life cycle
• Determination of the validity of the final system with respect to user needs and requirements
• Examination of the behavior of a system by executing the system on sample test data

When do you stop Testing?

• Most traditional testing techniques use some kind of test coverage information as the stopping criteria, with implicit assumption that higher coverage means higher quality or lower level of defects
• More formal testing techniques include control flow testing that attempts to cover execution paths and domain testing that attempts to cover boundaries between different input sub-domains
• Product Reliabiltiy Goals can be another stopping criteria

What are risks?

• A risk is a condition that can result in a loss
• The probability that a loss will occur is the major concern
• Risks will exist, but we must take countermeasures to reduce the probability that it will occur
• Testing is a means of identify and reducing risks

 Possible Risks for a Software System

• Incorrect results will be produced
• Unauthorized transactions will be accepted by the system
• Computer file integrity will be lost
• Processing cannot be reconstructed
• Service provided to user will degrade to an unacceptable level
• Security of system is compromised
• Results of system are unreliable
• System will be difficult to use
• Programs will be unmaintainable
• System will not be portable
• Performance levels become unacceptable
• System will be difficult to operate

An effective approach to testing is to identify and evaluate the risks in the system.

What are the 80/20% Rules in Testing?

• 20% of the software components are responsible for 80% of the problems
• 80% of testing coverage can take as much time as the last 20% of coverage.

What is Inspection?

• are examinations of software artifacts by human inspectors aimed at discovering and fixing faults in the software system
• critical reading and analysis of software code or other artifacts, such as designs, product specification, test plans, test cases, etc.
• identified faults need to be removed as a result of the inspection process, and removal needs to be verified 
• a technique for defect prevention and removal