Thanks to automated tests you can identify potential problems and modify defects in the code in the early stages of software development.
When working on large projects with public administration and state institutions, you can certainly count on one thing: what is defined at the beginning of the project is subject to very small possibilities to change. This includes the budget that is available, the time frame in which it is necessary to complete the project and the number of defined functionalities. In order to successfully complete the project with defined parameters, it is necessary to develop a good plan from the beginning.
Such challenging, often multiyear projects, are the responsibility of teams made up of a large number.of people. On the back end side you need to ensure that business logic is functioning, and on the front end side that the user interface is working as intended. It is therefore essential to involve automated tests from the start of development of a software system, in order to be certain that the above-mentioned activities have been successfully completed.
Writing tests is not an easy job. If you are working for an institution that selects and imposes the technology in which you will develop the software, then this same technology can be a limiting factor for testing. On the other hand, when you are choosing the technological solution, the dilemma is what is the optimal technology for the task ahead of you. Therefore, development teams that are doing development based on tests, when selecting technologies, they choose those that will make their writing and integration into software solution easier.
Before, or during writing automated tests, the practice is to use the manual tests. They can be informal, where the tester verifies whether the functionality is implemented in accordance with the documentation, or formal, where the test is conducted according to a pre-defined set of steps that simulate user behavior.The main disadvantage of these tests is that they focus on the verification of certain functionality, whereby the entire system image can be easy lost out of sight. Thus,,with manual testing , you can confirm that a particular piece of software is satisfactory, but also ovelook that disrupted functioning of other part of the system is caused by this change. This is especially true in situations when development team generalize one functionality in order to use it in several different modules. These situations are common.
Thanks to automated tests you can, on time and in the early stages of software development identify potential problems and modify defects in the code.
The tests can be divided in n categories, and here we have listed those commonly used in the development:
- Unit Tests (unit)which are used for separate testing of each software component i.e. functionality independently from other parts of the system;
- Integration teststhat check whether the system components work together, as described in the specifications of systems and programs design. They test everything, from the user interface to the database and are used for simulation of the user;
- Functional testingchecks whether an integrated system actually performs the functions described in the specification of the requirement. During development, they are most commonly covered with integration tests;
- Performance testing are used for testing performance of software solution.