Software Testing Myths

In the last topic, we learned what software testing is. Now In this topic, we will learn about myths. What are the myths of software testing? Any Talk or any thought that people have made up in their minds but that is not true, we call it myth. Testing is very expensive, there is a lot of expense that goes in testing. Why is it expensive? Because Testing takes time. After the product has been made we need time for testing. At that time, we will do the testing. Now, why is testing important? Here we will take an example of medical software, imagine that the percentage of the drug in medical software, if in the place of 0.75% it becomes 7.5%, you can think Of what will be the effect. What will be the effect In the market if that medicine is launched in the market? If humans / us, we are consuming it, you can imagine what effect it will have. People think that testing is expensive but people should also know the importance of testing. Testing is time-consuming because when we are testing any product or application we have to think about it in all possible ways. We have to think like a user, we have to think like a tester. Like Imagine there is a mobile recharge application. We will think of this application in 2 ways. We will test it from the side of the user and also as per the tester. What will we see from the user’s side? We will see that when the user is using, how easy it is to use, are there a lot of complexities in it. And at the end, the product that is going out should be a quality product. Whenever we get the requirements, we can review those requirements. We can see how this requirement will develop in the future. There are some activities and modules which are interdependent, how will they relate to each other. All these things can be tested at the time of documentation. It is a wrong notion that only after the completion of software, we will test it. When testing is done, it means the product is perfect, right? We have tested all the scenarios. Now there is no issue left. This is again just a thought. it happens when an application that we have developed in India and the client or that particular client for whom we are developing the application. That client is in the USA. We checked that application in India on all mobile devices and we have tested it on various mobile devices. It is running very well at our end and we are even getting its response, the application is not crashing. But when we are passing on this application to the client. There the application is crashing and the response that application has to give, it is not giving. Does it mean that the testing didn’t happen properly? No, right. Maybe there are various reasons. At our end, the application is running on 3G but in the US, 4G is going on. Maybe that application cannot be executed at the rate of speed of 4G. Right? There can be many reasons for that. If the software is tested that means it is bug-free.  There is a 100% guarantee that this software will not get the bug. This thought is wrong. Why is it wrong? If any company is testing a particular software, it cannot claim that it is 100% bug-free. Why? There are bugs in Windows, Apple’s Mac OS also has bugs. Right? If any defect is left out then the responsibility is on the testers. This thought that is there, takes this thing with it that when any time, cost, or the requirement is changed for that time is required for the tester to understand what is the requirement, how the functionality of the requirement will work in it. Okay. Let’s take an example of Captcha Code. You must have seen that at the time of the login or when we fill up a form for the registration on any website. Then the captcha code comes.  When Captcha code was not there before and after changing the requirement Captcha code is used. So, to test that we will require more time. Right? If those particular scenarios are missed in particular functionality, then the responsibility is on the testers. If the quality of products is not good, then testers are responsible. If it is not bug-free, even then the testers are responsible. If the quality is not given, even for that the tester is responsible. No matter what happens to the product, the responsibility lies with the tester.  This thought is wrong. Okay. Here they are talking about the responsibility of the tester. What is the responsibility of the tester? What will he do? He is not fixing the bug, he Is finding the bug. And how is he finding it? Every scenario after using the best data, he is testing. In most of the scenarios the testing happens. But somewhere, some scenarios are left out. If there is less time. If we have to release the software in 2 days and if some scenarios are left out then the tester is considered to be responsible. For missing any bug or any error. If you have to save the time of testing. Do one thing, let’s do automation. Yes Automation will save time but where the requirements are constantly changing, there cannot be any automation done there. Imagine that a client comes and he has to make a website. On the website, he 1^st says that I want to make the website only for Gujarat. All the hotels of Gujarat and all the tourist places of Gujarat should be displayed on that website. After one week the client comes again and says that I want Kerala along with Gujarat and in a few days, he comes back and says he wants Rajasthan as well. When the requirements are changing this way. Their automation is not possible. Outside people also think that anyone can do testing. Whoever has got a little bit of IT knowledge and whoever has got a little bit of software knowledge, that person can come and do the testing. And testing is not a creative job. This is the thought that is there outside. But this is the wrong thing. Why is testing a creative job? We have to think from all angles, in which way I can improve the software. In which way I can take its quality further ahead so that no bug is left out from me. If there is a bug in the market neither any client, nor any user will be able to trace it. A tester’s only task is to find bugs. No, the tester’s work is very important. Why is the tester's work important? Let’s see that. A tester should understand the working of every module.  How is each module working, which module is dependent on which module? How is the data flow happening inside the modules? A to B, B to C, C to A. All that working the tester should know in-depth. Only then the tester will be able to find the bug properly in particular software. So, what did we see? All these things that were there, were a myth. A thought that people have made but that is not true. In the next topic, we will see Testing Principles that we use in testing software.