Do we really need testing ?

Do we really need testing? Do you want to know what is testing in software industry? Well! You have landed in the right place :). Welcome to the field of Software Testing. Lets have a quick look on what is testing according to various testing experts in the software world. According to Myers "Software Testing is the process of executing a program or system with the intent of finding errors". According to IEEE "The process of operating a system or component under specified conditions, observing or recording the results and making an evaluating of some aspect of the system or component". Does it sound gibberish to some of you? Lets take a simple real world example to understand testing. Let us assume that you want to build a car. The client would have given you the requirements, which would say how the car should look and behave? The engineers develop the car and it is ready for testing. Now, the test Engineers will check for color of the car, make of the engine, steering adjustments and They will also drive the car to see if everything is working fine. So in simple terms we check the car to see if it working fine with respect to the requirements specified by the customer. Now having understood what is testing let us see the adverse effects if you do not perform testing in a project. Lets take a online shopping portal which enables users to purchase items in an online store. Now, you want to purchase an item, says a Wrist Watch through online store. You log in to the website, add the watch to the shopping cart and you are redirected to the payment page. You have selected to pay via your debit/credit card. The amount is deducted and in the next page you see a blank screen. Alas, what would be your reaction? You really do not know if your amount got deducted or u purchased your item etc. Now will u come again to purchase in the site? A big 'No' will be your answer. Reason for the above scenario is the product is not completed tested which lead to a loss of a customer. In software Industry the very important factors to improve business is to retain customers. A product should be well tested before it is delivered to the customer. Now you might ask a question! Why do software have bugs even after testing? Why do we need testing if that is the case? Good Point :). Testing does not guarantee that product is 100 % bug free. If some one has ever told you this, then they are wrong. Testing can prove the presence of errors but not the absence. Testing can increase the quality of the product that you deliver. To summarize, testing involves operating an application under specified conditions and evaluating the results. Testing should be done in both normal and abnormal conditions. A good testing approach should uncover all possible defects in an application. Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Keep watching this space for more articles on testing :)