Test Plan for ABC Video Order Processing
This section shows the elements of a software test plan and how one company designs testing to validate that specification, design, and coding mesh with the functional and non-functional requirements of the system. The development of a test plan takes into consideration the programming language. Selection of a programming language can involve considering older languages, like COBOL, first used in 1960. Suppose a company has legacy business systems and a project application is well known to the company (meaning that it is a system with precedent) with stable requirements. In that case, COBOL might be a good choice. Indeed, a scan of job openings 70 years after COBOL was first used often finds several openings for COBOL programmers.
As you review this test plan, think about a plan to verify and validate the goals, design (organization and flow), and content of this course, CS302. Recall that at a high enough level of abstraction, the SDLC can be applied to other types of development, including course development.
Summary
Testing is the process of finding errors in an application's code and documentation. Testing is a difficult activity because it is a high-cost, time-consuming activity for which the returns diminish upon success. As such, it is frequently difficult for managers to understand the importance of testing in application development.
The levels of developmental testing include unit, integration, and system. In addition, an agent, who is not a project team member, performs quality assurance testing to validate the documentation and processing for the user. Code tests are on subroutines, modules, and programs to verify that individual code units work as expected. Integration tests verify the logic and processing for suites of modules, verifying intermodular communications. Systems tests verify that the application operates in its intended environment" and meets requirements for constraints, response time, peak processing, backup and recovery, and security, access, and audit controls.
Strategies of testing are either white-box, black-box, top-down, or bottom-up. White-box tests verify that specific logic of the application works as intended. White-box strategies include logic tests, mathematical proof tests, and cleanroom tests. Black-box strategies include equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, and error guessing. Heuristics for matching the test level to the strategy were provided.