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A product's stages of development are referred to as the product life
cycle (PLC). There is considerable work involved in getting a product
through its PLC. Software testing at many companies has matured as
lessons have been learned about the most effective test methodologies.
Still, there is a great difference of opinion about the implementation
and effectiveness of automated software testing and how it relates to
the PLC.
Computers have taken over many functions in our society that were
once "manual" operations. Factories use computers to control
manufacturing equipment and have cut costs enormously. Electronics
manufacturing use computers to test everything from microelectronics to
circuit card assemblies. Since automation has been so successful in so
many areas, does it make sense that a software program should be used
to test another software program? This is referred to as "automated
software testing" for the remainder of this article.
Software testing using an automatic test program will generally
avoid the errors that humans make when they get tired after multiple
repetitions. The test program won't skip any tests by mistake. The test
program can also record the results of the test accurately. The results
can be automatically fed into a database that may provide useful
statistics on how well the software development process is going. On
the other hand, software that is tested manually will be tested with a
randomness that helps find bugs in more varied situations. Since a
software program usually won't vary each time it is run, it may not
find some bugs that manual testing will. Automated software testing is
never a complete substitute for manual testing.
There has been plenty of debate about the usefulness of automatic
software testing. Some companies are quite satisfied with the developer
testing his/her own work. Testing your own work is generally thought of
as risky since you'll be likely to overlook bugs that someone not so
close to the code (and not so emotionally attached to it) will see
easily. As soon as the developer says it's done they ship it. The other
extreme is the company that has its own automatic software test group
as well as a group that tests the software manually. Just because we
have computers does that mean that it is cost effective to write tests
to test software and then spend time and resources to maintain them?
The answer is both yes and no. When properly implemented, automated
software test can save a lot of time, time that will be needed as the
software approaches shipping.
This is where the PLC comes in. How effectively you make use of the
PLC will often be dependent on your programming resources and the
length of the PLC. Companies large and small struggle with software
testing and the PLC. Hopefully, this discussion of the PLC should help
you determine when to use automation and when manual testing is
preferred. This should help you answer the questions: "Why should I
automate my software testing?" "How can I tell if automation is right
for my product?" "When is the best time to develop my test software?".
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