Software Testing: Concepts and Operations

Preface

Software engineering is the only engineering discipline where product testing is a major technical and organizational concern, as well as an important cost factor. Several factors contribute to this state of affairs:

• The first factor that makes software testing such a big concern is, of course, the size and complexity of software products, which make the design of software products a high-risk, error-prone proposition.
• The second factor is the lack of a standardized development process for software products, which means that product quality cannot be ensured by process controls, and has to be ensured by product controls instead.
• The third factor is the scarcity of practical, scalable methods that can ensure product quality through static product analysis, shifting the burden to dynamic methods.
• Other factors include the absence of a general reuse discipline, the lack of scalability of correctness-preserving development methods, and the pervasiveness of specification changes through the development, maintenance, and evolution process, etc.

The subject of this book is the study of software testing; amongst the many books that are currently available on the same subject, this book can be characterized by the following premises:

• Software testing as an integral part of software quality assurance. We view software testing as part of a comprehensive strategy for software quality assurance, alongside many other techniques. The law of diminishing returns advocates the use ...