Web Software Testing: Ensuring Web Software Functionality
There are various phases in software development life cycle (SDLC). On of the significant phases among this is software testing. Different types of testing are employed in each phase beginning with development till it reaches the market. The testing spans over all the stages in the SDLC. Moreover there are different varieties of the software that needs to be tested before it is released to the costumer.
There are many different classes of software and software for web applications is one of them. The importance of this type of software has increased rapidly since the arrival of the Internet. Because of the high impact Internet has on our daily lives any web software is carefully tested before launching in order to reduce the associated security risks that originate from the use of the Internet.
Even though the testing of web software is vital, there is at all times rush in building and testing those application due to time constraints. There are different methods that the test engineers use to test this software. They are code testing, load testing, compatibility testing, functional testing and regression testing.
The web software is usually released using a pattern of software release known as alpha/beta testing. This is a simulated or actual operational test conducted by potential users or an independent test team at the developers’ site. The software is incomplete at this point and testing is done only for small modules of the software. Alpha testing is frequently employed for off-the-shelf software as a method of internal acceptance testing. Software that has been alpha tested cannot be released until all the major functional parts have been coded and tested.
After the alpha testing is completed the software is permitted to undergo the beta phase of testing. In beta testing the web software I completely built. The software is made available for use to a restricted number of customers intended for software testing previous to the official release. In case of website design it is easy to put together the various pages as the website design uses HTML. So the alpha/beta technique is generally not used for website development. This imply that it is possible to build and test one page at a time and later go to the next one with independent testing for each one.
In code testing the software testing or development engineer examines the codes for software bugs. It’s essential for the software to be free of bugs because the web development process is very quick. Paired-programming is one of the popular methods used by highly qualified technicians to achieve error free coding.
Two coders working at a single workstation it is at the core of paired programming. The developer typing the code is called the driver while the programmer that checks every line of code as it is produced is called the observer or the navigator. Support for this methodology is provided by some research data produced by Laurie Williams at University of Utah in Salt Lake City. According to this research, paired programmers produce code with 15% less bugs while only being 15% slower than individual programmers.
The fact that the software is tested many times during the development process should provide bug free software by the end of it. Load testing is used to check if a web-site/application will fail or loss performance under the added pressure of heavy loads or inputs from multiple users log-in, mail servers, etc. Load testing will provide information regarding the amount of users that could connect simultaneously to a site, the number of transactions that the system can cope at the same time and its responsiveness under different circumstances or amount of traffic.
Compatibility testing needs to be carried out to asses the software compatibility with the software and hardware that it may interact with. This includes testing compatibility with operating systems, database, browsers, peripherals and backwards compatibility.
Functional testing asses the alignment between the application and its specifications checking that it provides all the required functions. To do that an extensive range of both normal and erroneous data will be input to validate the behavior caused by each of the software features. Regression testing is carried out to check that any changes made to the code in order to enhance it or to fix defects has not affected any functionality.
Regression testing is very important whenever there’s iterative development of software. In this type of development, the developer adds another module with some functionality to the existing module that’s running. One should make sure that adding this module does not ruin the existing functionality. Regression testing is performed for the purpose of discovering regression bugs. The above tests are essential for completing web software testing.
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