Overview of Testing - Software Testing: Testing Across the Entire Software Development Life Cycle - page 26

1. Identify the magnitude and sources of development risk reducible by

testing
Perform testing to reduce identifi ed risk
Know when testing is completed
Manage testing as a standard project within the development project

2.
3.
4.

1.7.2 Development Axiom—Quality Must Be Built In
Because Quality Cannot Be Tested In

Testing is concerned with what is in the product or system and what is missing.
Testing can only verify the product or system and its operation against predetermined
criteria. Testing neither adds nor takes away anything. Quality is an issue that is
decided upon during the requirements and design phases by the development project
owners or requesting customers. Quality is not decided at testing time.

1.7.3 The Evolution of Software Testing as a
Technology Profession

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, software quality was a hit-or-miss proposition. There
were no formal development processes and no formal testing processes. Software
developers of the 1970s and 1980s were, for the most part, successful in capturing
their best development practices. This capture provided a repeatable level of soft-
ware reliability and stability. Unfortunately for customers, the level of software reli-
ability and stability provided by these repeatable corporate processes was far below
the level of software reliability and stability of the earlier systems. It is an informed
conjecture that the missing ingredient was a comparable software testing process.
For unexplained reasons, this new, lower quality software became acceptable as the
norm to a large number of computer users.
Testing did not become a recognized formal software process until the 1990s when
the Y2K Sword of Damocles threatened all industries that somehow relied on computer
power for their livelihood. Then, testing was thrust to the forefront of software activities
as the savior of the 21st century. Billions of dollars were spent mitigating the possible
business disasters caused by the shortcuts programmers had taken when coding dates.

1.7.4 The Ten Principles of Good Software Testing

Y2K testing did not start in a vacuum. Several groups of computer professionals
realized the need to develop a full repertoire of software testing techniques by the
mid-1980s. By the 1990s, software testing whitepapers, seminars, and journal ar-
ticles began to appear. This indicates that the groups of the 1980s were able to gain
practical experience with their testing techniques.