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A Brief Introduction to Software Testing

What kind of testing does your application need?

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels
Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

In software development, any code needs to go through a set steps before it can be released. Regardless of the application field, the target audience/ platform, or size, all developers must go through the software development process.

This process consists of 6 main steps: collect project/ application requirements, analyze these requirements, design the software, test and debug, deploy, and maintain the project.

Arguably the most critical step of the process is the testing step. Although the testing step comes after the design step (which includes design, outlining, and implementing the code) in the cycle, in practice, testing goes in parallel with writing the code.

Photo by the author (made using Canva)
Photo by the author (made using Canva)

The primary goal of software tests is to eliminate bugs in the code. However, there are additional benefits a project can gain from a good testing process. Benefits such as enhancing performance, user experience, and security of the overall project.

Often, when working on big projects, the team is divided into several sections. Each has its development task, and each task has its standalone functionality. These tasks are then combined to form the overall software product. That’s why each part must undergo its own testing process to make sure it functions properly before it is added to the main project.

The question now is, what kind of testing should one use?

Types of Software Testing

There are many different types of software testing that you can use to make sure that your code is functioning as it should, and any changes to your code are not missing the entire functionality of the project. Although all testing techniques are useful, not all of them are equal. In this article, we will go through how different testing practices differ from each other.

Let’s get testing…

We can generally categorize software testing into two main categories: functional and non-functional testing.

Functional testing

Functional testing involves the testing of the functional aspects of a software application. When you’re performing functional tests, you’ve got to check each functionality in your code. You will need to ensure that each section of the code is functioning correctly. There are many types of functional testing, for example:

  1. Unit testing.
  2. Integration testing.
  3. End-to-end testing.
  4. Smoke testing.
  5. Regression testing.

Non-functional testing

Non-functional testing targets the non-functional aspects of an application, like performance, reliability, usability, and security. Non-functional testing is aimed to improve the quality of your code. It isn’t easy to perform this type of test manually. So, these tests are usually executed using special testing tools. Some examples of non-functioning testing are:

  1. Performance testing.
  2. Security testing.
  3. Compatibility testing.
  4. Usability testing.
  5. Scalability testing.

Functional vs. non-functional testing

The question is not whether to choose functional or non-functional testing, but rather what type of functioning or non-functioning testing should you choose for a particular application. The reason for this is, the purpose of using functional and non-functional testing is quite different.

You will use functional testing if you want to make sure all the component of your code is functioning the way they should. But, if you already know that everything is working correctly, yet you need to analyze the performance of the code, then you will use non-functional testing.

Photo by the author (made using Canva)
Photo by the author (made using Canva)

Types of functional testing

Functional testing has many categories, and you can use different ones based on your goals of performing the testing process. To better discuss the difference between the various functional testing categories, let’s discuss the 5 most used functional testing techniques.

№1: Unit testing

Unit testing is usually performed by the developer writing different unit tests to achieve a particular functionality in the code. For example, you would write different tests for a specific function to test its behavior for different inputs.

This usually entails writing unit tests that would call the function with different inputs per unit test and validate its output. Code coverage is essential for unit testing quality. All test cases need to cover three aspects:

  1. Line coverage.
  2. Code path coverage.
  3. Method coverage.

Unit testing is the primary testing technique followed in most Data Science applications.

№2: Integration testing

Usually, a project consists of different code files (modules), each performing a specific task from the overall project. Unit testing is significant to test if each of these files works perfectly on its own; however, when all of these modules are combined, we need integration testing.

Integration testing makes sure that the different modules are working together correctly. Often, you will need to perform fewer integration tests than unit tests.

Two useful tools for unit and integration testing are Jasmine and Mocha.

№3: Regression testing

Building and maintaining a software project is often an ongoing process. It’s never all done at once. Usually, new characteristics and properties are added frequently.

If you need to test your project after making changes in any module or function, then you need a testing technique that tests the whole system, and that’s regression testing.

Regression tests need not be as extensive as the original unit and integration tests but should ensure just the amount of coverage to certify that the functionality is stable.

Some useful regression testing tools are TestComplete, Selenium, and Appium.

№4: End-to-end testing

End-to-end testing is the functional testing of the entire software system. This testing is performed only when system integration testing is complete, including both the functional & non-functional requirements.

This type of testing is optimal when the project you’re testing involves user interactions. End-to-end testing ensures that every part of your code, from the source to the user, functions correctly.

Cucumber, Protractor, and Karma are some great end-to-end testing tools.

№5: Smoke testing

Smoke testing, also is known as Build Verification Testing, is a type of software testing that focuses on ensuring that the most important functions work. The result of this testing is used to decide if a build is stable enough to deploy.

The term ‘smoke testing’ came to software testing from a similar type of hardware testing, in which the device passed the test if it did not release any smoke the first time it was turned on.

Conclusion

Testing is one of the most important steps in Software Development. No matter what is you filed or your application, you will need to go through different stages of testing before you can release a project.

There are two main categories for software testing, functional and non-functional. Functional testing focuses on testing the functionality of the code, while non-functional testing is aimed towards the performance of the code.

You can use different functional and non-functional testing techniques based on your application and your end-goal. Often, functional tests are run before non-functional tests because you need to ensure that a project is functioning correctly before you decide to enhance its performance.


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