Oh, hey there. I hear you are about to begin a new project at work. This new project happens to be the implementation of a new program. There can be fewer more frustrating things, then starting to use a new program. The familiar comfort is not there yet. A lot goes on behind the scenes before an end-user can see the final results. Perhaps if we take a look into the process, this will ease your fears a little.
There is a lot of thought and hard work that goes into such a thing. There are four main software testing stages to familiarize yourself with. They are unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing. Let’s talk about each one a little, so you can appreciate the new program or piece of software you are going to start using.
Unit Testing
You might not be able to tell what unit testing was, by its name. An easy description would be breaking down the software in sections, and seeing if they work individually, and together collectively. Say for example this software automatically reads and writes information to a database. The first part of the software code would be tested to ensure that the calculation coding works properly. Then the code to pull that data and write it to the database would be tested. Read Also: Top 10 Apps for Cleaning MAC 2020
Integration Testing
Integration testing could be described as a combination of code sections from unit testing. Staying with our example above, the calculation code would be combined with the database writing code. This is to see how they work together. Typically, this will be done in a test environment, prior to the second stage.
System Testing
System testing is the last rigorous testing before the final stage. This is essentially considered a finished product, minus any changes we will detail next. This software at this stage will be more polished than that in the integration stage. The software is tested against the requirements and scope of the project.
Acceptance Testing
The name, basically says it all. This is the point of the project where the developer, is looking for acceptance from the client. This will be end-user testing. The people that use this day in and day out will test to see if it all really works. If something doesn’t work or looks right, the changes will be recorded and made. Once everyone agrees that the software works as intended, it is rolled out to be used.
As you can see, there are a lot of checks and balances that go into a program, before someone new gets to use it. It can also tell you that if a program has a lot of bugs, it might not have been thoroughly tested. Now that you have a better understanding of how much work goes into the new software, perhaps it will feel less daunting. Do not be afraid of that new software going in at work. If your company using a team of professionals like those at the performance lab, you are in good hands.
