Nick Jenkins' Software Testing Primer: A Great Intro to Software Testing
/Do you need help with software testing? Do you need ideas on how to get started? Look no further.
While trying to organize a software testing session, I came across a piece by Nick Jenkins, “A Software Testing Primer: An Introduction to Software Testing”. It’s perhaps one of the best testing resources I’ve ever come across. The under listed points are not designed to be a summary of the primer, but are useful ideas I have successfully applied to my testing projects:
Testing ideally, should take place throughout the software development life cycle. More often than not, especially with the waterfall model, it is simply tacked onto the back-end. If the purpose of testing is to reduce risk, this means piling up risks throughout the project to resolve at the end, in itself, a risky tactic.
Approach software testing with the attitude that the product is already broken; it has defects, and it is your job to discover them. Assume the product or system is inherently flawed and it is your job to ‘illuminate’ the flaws.
Build robust software that is designed to test itself and can diagnose certain kinds of errors.
Test early, test often: If you want to find bugs, start as early as possible. That means unit testing for developers, integration testing during assembly and system testing by analysts in that order of priority.
The full version of the eBook is available in the resources section. Let me know what you think.
