At the beginning it is worth asking the question whether software testing is necessary at all, since they are created by specialists, often software engineers with many years of experience?
It turns out that over the years, software testing has become an integral part of its development, as important as the development process itself. Why?
To answer this question you should go back several dozen years to the beginning of programming. With the development of the era of computers, a growing number of both specialists and enthusiasts began to deal with software. Much more software was created, which in turn allowed for the production of more software. Over time, the demand for this service sector has become so great that the initial specialists and software engineers did not have time to check it thoroughly. Hence, the testers sector began to develop, which was supposed to verify what programmers produced.
Nowadays, the very subject of software testing is a very broad field that is dealt with by specially trained specialists and no manufacturing process is able to bypass the testing stage. Competition on the IT market means that the quality of software plays an important role in acquiring and retaining the end customer.
There are many reasons why software testing is important for its development. But it is worth paying attention to the most important ones.
1. No one is infallible
Actually, mistakes are made in every area. It is no different in the case of programming. Complex, modern IT systems make it much easier to make a small mistake or omission than a few decades ago. If we add the complexity of the systems, security requirements and expected reliability, it is quite easy to make small, but also larger, more expensive mistakes. Testing, sometimes with multiple test iterations, is designed to check the software and find such errors.
2. Quality is customer satisfaction
"Our client our master," says the saying, is also reflected in the IT industry. Strong competition means that the potential customer has a wide spectrum of producer selection and its changes if the effects expected by him are not satisfactory. That is why the quality of the produced software is so important, which finally results in the acquisition of new and retaining previous customers.
3. Costs or money as always
Software errors are the type of defects that manufacturers usually have to fix on their own, i.e. pay for them. Often, detection of critical errors at the initial programming stage allows you to eliminate further errors that occur as a result of inheritance of the original error. This, in turn, translates directly into time, and thus money, which is often many times larger compared to the costs of testing itself.
4. Internal development
Software testing has an amazing impact on internal development in any IT organization. Finding errors and fixing them is an integral part of the professional development of programmers, for a simple reason: errors affect the search for often unconventional solutions. Often, a solution to a problem results in a solution that was not taken into account until the error occurred.