Testing Complex Applications - Software Testing: Testing Across the Entire Software Development Life Cycle - page 250

Chapter 15

Future Directions in Testing

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

•

to predict the kinds of opportunities that might arise for experienced software testing
professionals in the future

15.1 INTRODUCTION

It is time to gaze into our testing crystal ball and divine some of the new opportuni-
ties and directions that software testing will take in the next 10 years. First, we will
look at trends in software development to augur the implications for the software
testing profession. Then, we will look at trends in applications to prognosticate the
implications for software testing research.

15.2 FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT THAT COULD INCREASE THE NEED
FOR TESTING PROFESSIONALS

There are two trends in software development that are of interest to software testing
professionals. The fi rst trend is “get the code out quickly, we can fi x it later.” This
trend seemed to start in the 1990s and was pushed to the extreme by the dot-com
boom. Recall how unstable the fi rst versions of this quick-release software were. How-
ever, because the concept and marketing were so exciting and innovative, companies
purchased the poor-quality software by the hundreds of licenses anyway.
Fast-forward 15 years. The patches and fi xpacks that used to be provided reluc-
tantly by these software vendors over a period of months are now boldly announced
by icons daily on my desktop computer. Some of the patches fi x problems so severe
that my current employer requires me to apply these patches immediately ! We can