Web Software Testing: Guarantee that the Web Software is purposeful and safe

The software development life cycle contains numerous stages.Software testing is one of the most essential stages. There are different testing types and they are useful at different stages of the software development cycle. These methods are employed during various stages of the SDLC. Moreover there are different varieties of the software that needs to be tested before it is released to the costumer.

There are many different classes of software and software for web applications is one of them. The importance of this type of software has increased rapidly since the arrival of the Internet. Most security risks come from Internet. Therefore it’s crucial to test the software thoroughly prior to releasing it on the market.

Even though the testing of web software is vital, there is at all times rush in building and testing those application due to time constraints.There are different methods that the test engineers use to test this software. They are code testing, load testing, compatibility testing, functional testing and regression testing.

The web software is usually released using a pattern of software release known as alpha/beta testing.This is a simulated or actual operational test conducted by potential users or an independent test team at the developers' site. This testing will be upon incomplete software and will be tested for small parts of the software. Software that passed the alpha test will not be released till all the major functionalities of the software are built and tested.

Beta testing is done by a limited amount of users that can use the software before its official release takes place. In case of website design it is easy to put together the various pages as the website design uses HTML. So the alpha/beta technique is generally not used for website development. This imply that it is possible to build and test one page at a time and later go to the next one with independent testing for each one.

In code testing the software testing or development engineer examines the codes for software bugs. It’s essential for the software to be free of bugs because the web development process is very quick. Paired-programming is one of the popular methods used by highly qualified technicians to achieve error free coding .

The Paired programming is a method in software development where two programmers work simultaneously at one keyboard. The developer typing the code is called the driver while the programmer that checks every line of code as it is produced is called the observer or the navigator. This strategy is appealing because fewer bugs are produced. According to The Economist, "Laurie Williams of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has shown that paired programmers are only 15% slower than two independent individual programmers, but produce 15% fewer bugs.”

The testing process continues through out the software development cycle so that at the time of final release it is free of bugs. Load testing is performed against heavy loads or inputs such as multiple user log-ins and mail servers to determine the point at which the web-site/application fails or the point when performance degrades. The testing documents the number of users the site will support simultaneously, the number of transactions it can handle and its response time under various conditions or traffic flows.

Compatibility testing needs to be carried out to asses the software compatibility with the software and hardware that it may interact with. This includes testing compatibility with operating systems, database, browsers, peripherals and backwards compatibility.

Functional testing asses the alignment between the application and its specifications checking that it provides all the required functions. To do that an extense range of both normal and erronous data will be imput to validate the behaviour caused by each of the software features Regression testing is carried out to check that any changes made to the code in order to enhance it or to fix defects has not affected any functionality.

When interative methodology is used to develop software regression testing is crucial. In this type of development, the developer adds another module with some functionality to the existing module that's running. One should make sure that adding this module does not ruin the existing functionality. Regression testing is performed for the purpose of discovering regression bugs. The above tests are essential for completing web software testing.