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Unlike physical systems, most of the defects in software are design errors. Read about the important purpose of software testing and differentiate between verification and validation and basic software testing terms. Compare and contrast the use of various testing strategies, including black-box, white-box, top-down, and bottom-up.
Test-related measures
Sometimes, test techniques are confused with test objectives. Test techniques are to be viewed as aids which help to ensure the achievement of test objectives. For instance, branch coverage is a popular test technique. Achieving a specified branch coverage measure should not be considered the objective of testing per se: it is a means to improve the chances of finding failures by systematically exercising every program branch out of a decision point. To avoid such misunderstandings, a clear distinction should be made between test-related measures, which provide an evaluation of the program under test based on the observed test outputs, and those which evaluate the thoroughness of the test set.
Measurement is usually considered instrumental to quality analysis. Measurement may also be used to optimize the planning and execution of the tests. Test management can use several process measures to monitor progress.