Web Software Testing: Guarantee that the Web Software is purposeful and safe

November 30, 2008 · Filed Under Tech News 

The software development life cycle contains numerous stages. Software testing is one of the significant phases within the software development cycle (SDCL). There are different testing types and they are useful at different stages of the software development cycle. The testing spans over all the stages in the SDLC. In addition, all the different versions of the software have to be tested before they are delivered to either the costumer or the target market.

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. The majority of the security threats start off from Internet and it is necessary to make sure that the web software is carefully tested prior to releasing to the costumer.

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. The different types of tests can be grouped in 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 stage is finished, the software advances to the beta phase of testing. The web software should be fully completed by now. The software is released to a restricted number of users for testing before it is officially released. Since the web site design uses HTML coding, it’s easy to integrate individual web pages on site; hence the alpha/beta method is usually 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.

When software testers or development engineers are code testing they are checking for the presence of software bugs. Web development is a very rapid process so the abscence of bugs is required. Paired-programming is one of the popular methods used by highly qualified technicians to achieve error free coding .

The Paired programming is a method in software development where two programmers work simultaneously at one keyboard. One programmer types in the code when the other person observes and reviews each line at the same time. The judgment behind taking up this method is the following. The Economist proclaims that, “Laurie Williams of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has shown that paired programmers are only 15% slower than two independent individual programmers, but produce 15% fewer bugs.”

The testing process continues through out the software development cycle so that at the time of final release it is free of bugs. Load testing is performed against heavy loads or inputs such as multiple user log-ins and mail servers to determine the point at which the web-site/application fails or the point when performance degrades. The testing documents the number of users the site will support simultaneously, the number of transactions it can handle and its response time under various conditions or traffic flows.

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.

The testing used to validate the conformance to specifications and requirements is the Functional testing. This testing involves performing a sequence of tests to validate the behavior of the software, feature by feature using a large number of normal and abnormal data. Regression testing is performed to ensure that enhancements, defect repairs or other changes to the software have not disrupted any existing functionality.

When interative methodology is used to develop software regression testing is crucial. 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. All the types of test mentioned above are necessary to provide complete web software testing.

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