Quality assurance (for software) is the process followed to provide some level of confidence that software-based system conforms to established technical requirements.
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Are programmers bad testers?
I know this sounds a lot like other questions which have already being asked, but it is actually slightly different. It seems to be generally considered that programmers are not good at performing the ...
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20answers
3k views
Is Software Testing Really Needed?
I'm a student working on my B.E(CS) and my question is the following:
Is testing in the software field needed?
If we create a software with great care, then why should we test?
After testing can ...
19
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9answers
2k views
Should we quit trying to do agile if QA takes 12 weeks?
Someone in my company recently proposed changes to our core product that our managers feel should trigger what I guess my company considers a full QA cycle (i.e. testing the entire product suite from ...
17
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6answers
464 views
The cost of longer delay between development and QA
At my current position, QA has become a bottleneck. We have had the unfortunate occurence of features being held out of the current build so that QA could finish testing. This means features that ...
15
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3answers
573 views
Add a unit test for each new bug
In my job all developers that resolve a bug have to add a new unit test that warns about this type of bugs (in the case it occours again). If a unit test is not possible (for example, a webpage design ...
14
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5answers
1k views
How are minimum system requirements determined?
We've all seen countless examples of software that ships with "minimum system requirements" like the following:
Windows XP/Vista/7
1GB RAM
200 MB Storage
How are these generally determined? ...
12
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6answers
1k views
How does a large company make rookie mistakes which leave security holes? [closed]
Sony was recently hacked with a SQL injection and the passwords of their user's was stored in plain text. These are rookie mistakes. In such a large company, how does this pass QA? How do they not ...
12
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4answers
398 views
Dilemma of QA vs. iterations
In my company, we successfully working with agile practices - but without using iterations. The main reason is that we can't find a clean way to fit in QA in an iteration cycle.
We understand QA as ...
9
votes
12answers
911 views
Should QA find reproducible scenarios?
Sometimes my QA team reports bugs, but neither I or them have any idea on how to reproduce them. This leads to very long and frustrating debugging sessions which sometimes do not even yield results.
...
8
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4answers
2k views
What are good requirements for a QA engineer? [closed]
We're hiring a QA person and I am supposed to come up with some interview questions. The truth is, I don't know much about what a good QA engineer should know, much less what good interview questions ...
8
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5answers
2k views
Test-driven development and improving white box testing skills
I am an entry level Java Programmer straight out of school.
I have good knowledge and experience with J2SE.
Can anyone advise me on how to improve or tune my skills towards being a Java white box ...
8
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6answers
450 views
When should development stop and QA begin?
We write a complete functional specification for our development team of two. We do not have professional testers however we have drafted in the help of our available helpdesk personnel to perform 'QA ...
7
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5answers
743 views
What is the role of QA in a BDD-driven project?
If running a project using BDD with 100% coverage of user stories with automated acceptance tests, what would be the role of a tester / quality assurance person?
I guess I am imagining that ...
7
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6answers
561 views
How to handle growing QA reporting requirements?
Some Background:
Our company is growing very quickly - in 3 years we've tripled in size and there are no signs of stopping any time soon. Our marketing department has expanded and our IT requirements ...
7
votes
5answers
688 views
Outsourcing Quality Assurance and Testing [closed]
I was recently approached by a software firm that specializes in Quality Assurance and Testing.
Up until this point, the developers at our (small) company have been responsible for their own QA for ...
7
votes
2answers
486 views
What programming skills does someone in QA need to work effectively in extreme programming projects?
Well, the title really says it all, but to elaborate a bit, can you take a random, typically effective QA department and have them learn to work in an XP environment (with a learning curve to pick up ...
6
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6answers
321 views
When conducting a code review, should the focus be on the completeness of the requirement?
Given that the reviewer is not part of the project, but was assigned to review because he has done some coding for the application being updated/enhanced.
Is it the reviewer's job to ensure that the ...
6
votes
6answers
3k views
Is it reasonable for QA department to get higher average salary than that of development department? [closed]
I just talked to a friend. He said that in his company, QA persons get higher salary than developers, that on average it is 2 times higher.
I'm quite surprised because I have thought that QA persons ...
6
votes
5answers
221 views
If a new feature is implemented and there is a bug, should QA reject that feature or accept it and file a new bug?
At work, we use a bug tracker called Pivotal Tracker (www.pivotaltracker.com) that allows engineers to file features and bugs. If a feature or bug fix is delivered, it is QA's job to accept or reject ...
6
votes
3answers
220 views
Long-Term Strategy For Implementing a QA System?
I have been given the task of implementing some QA testing into a massive existing system. We're going to start out with system-level tests and might add unit tests if it is deemed necessary.
I ...
6
votes
2answers
260 views
How much detail is in a good UI regression test?
We use a detailed step-by-step user-interface regression test for our commercial web application. It has a "backbone" test for the most used / most important parts of the system, with optional tests ...
5
votes
6answers
430 views
Does a “QA Programmer” style job exist?
Basically a programmer that comes in during the testing phase of a project and once a tester finds a bug, tracks down the cause. I enjoy this investigative process and am generally able to track down ...
5
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4answers
597 views
Mock Objects for Testing - Test Automation Engineer Perspective
How often QA engineers are responsible for developing Mock Objects for Unit Testing. So dealing with Mock Objects is just developer job ?. The reason i ask is i'm interested in QA as my career and am ...
5
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5answers
1k views
Are there coding tests to recruit a QA engineer?
I'm a software engineer in a small company and we are currently recruiting our first QA engineer. The guy will have to write as many as possible automated tests on our web-based tools suite.
As I've ...
5
votes
6answers
821 views
Should QA be part of the development department?
I work for a small company that has had a product development department for quite a while. What we haven't had, however, is a QA/testing group.
We are looking to add a testing group, but are ...
5
votes
3answers
468 views
What is your strategy for converting RC builds into retail?
We're trying to implement a strategy for how we transition our builds from RC to released retail code.
When we label a build as a release candidate, we send it to QA for regression. If they approve ...
5
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4answers
1k views
Software testing automation documentation
What document types could be used when describing software testing automation (on any phase, automation planning, test design, implementation, reporting)? Is there any standard types of documents?
If ...
4
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9answers
1k views
Separate trackers for features and defects?
At my company we use JIRA for new feature requests and then the QA department logs any bugs/defects in Quality Center. I find Quality Center to be very non-userfriendly as it requires IE because it ...
4
votes
3answers
178 views
What are creative ways to unblock a development team?
The setting: Multiple development teams, lots of dependencies and constraints.
If one team is blocked on developing some code, getting service calls, or moving to a QA environment, what are ways for ...
4
votes
5answers
238 views
What is a good measure of testing/tester efficiency?
I am about to participate in a discussion with management regarding measuring our testing efficiency as a QA organization. The main reason behind this is that half of our team is contracted out and ...
4
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3answers
175 views
Quality Assurance=inspections, reviews..?
Studying this subject extensively, the most books state the following:
Quality Assurance: prevention activity. Act of inspection, reviewing..
Quality Control: testing
While there are some ...
4
votes
2answers
137 views
Is performance testing applicable to a QA or business user testing?
Performance testing is something that I, as a developer do when optimizing. However, if the change is purely optimization, should the QA or business user perform their own performance testing? I would ...
3
votes
4answers
930 views
What quantitative metrics do you use to measure the quality of an offshore testing team?
Are developers are in the US, our testers are in India.
How do we measure their ability, quality, success?
Some possibilities:
- Coverage at the UI level
- Total time needed to run regression ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
How much time/money should be spent on software QA/QC?
Any non-trivial commercial application/program/system/what-have-you requires testing (QA/QC).
Not counting things like automated tests, how much time/money relative to the development investment in ...
3
votes
5answers
539 views
Disposable Virtual Machines for QA environments
I'm far from an expert in virtualization, so pardon my ignorance.
I've had this idea (really doubt it's original, haven't looked much into the topic) of "disposable" virtual machines for QA ...
3
votes
5answers
189 views
Should the test and the fix be written by different people?
There is a common practice in TDD to write a test before fix to avoid regression and simplify fixing. I just wonder what if the test and fix will be written by different people, total spent time will ...
3
votes
5answers
120 views
Log defects for failures of other systems?
We build products which often integrate with third party systems. Sometimes these systems error, which in turn causes our system to error. For example, we call a web service when a user updates ...
3
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2answers
210 views
QA - Developer communication
I am a developer and have worked at this company 4~5 years by now.
We have been practicing scrum for about 2 years.
I think, I have been worked well with QAs.
I believe QAs/developers/technical ...
3
votes
4answers
142 views
Short Deadline and QAing Yourself
When you have a short deadline to being with, and you're nearing the end of development, would you rather rush through coding to dedicate more time to QAing or keep your pace and possible have VERY ...
3
votes
3answers
245 views
Should deployment errors constitute a build failure?
Our software uses in-house written deployment software due to the complexity of the product. As part of our current QA (not dev) build process (using more in-house software) we compile the code, patch ...
2
votes
11answers
2k views
Who is responsible for defects found during development?
When the QA find an error like 'broken design in web programming', do you call it a bug and the corrections 'patches'? (Assume all this is before delivery.)
I was of the feeling that the corrections ...
2
votes
4answers
174 views
Must all new features go through betatest?
Obviously, small usability fixes and bugfixes go directly into the stable product. What about small new features? Can you afford to just release them after internal testing, or do they have to be ...
2
votes
2answers
247 views
What should I know or learn to get up to speed on being a software QA engineer?
I've been a software engineer in .NET for the past 3.5 years, and did my own integration and unit testing, but nothing too extensive. Now I'm being interviewed for an entry level QA job, and I wanted ...
2
votes
2answers
527 views
Parallel Testing options in Agile Development?
I've read through some very good resources on the internet trying to find out if my initial proposed testing process is a valid option. So please any advice or recommendations are appreciated.
...
2
votes
4answers
717 views
What I need to do to learn Quality Assurance?
I am a Biology student, who has changed my career to IT and have been working in the software field for the past 4 fours under the QA (auditing processes for ISO9001 purposes). Now I'm a Software QA ...
1
vote
5answers
392 views
How can QA prevent defects?
Also according to Software Testing By Srinisvasan Desikan, Gopalaswamy Ramesh or ISTQB text books. Quality assurance is e.g. reviewing products, inspections, walkthroughs to see if all standards are ...
1
vote
3answers
567 views
moving from development to quality assurance [closed]
I'm looking for advice on the best way to move from software engineering to quality assurance type of jobs.
Let's imagine a middle aged developer who is not up to date on all the current ...
1
vote
3answers
289 views
Making Separate Assemblies For Different Types Of Tests For The Same Component?
I was told by a few members here that splitting up my unit tests into different assemblies for different components is the best way to structure unit tests. Now, I have a few questions about that ...
1
vote
1answer
230 views
Functional Requirements / Specification and relationship to DEV and QA
Functional Requirements state "WHAT" needs to be done from a user's perspective
Functional Specification state "HOW" it needs to be done from technical standpoint.
Do QA teams focus and Functional ...
1
vote
1answer
91 views
Interested in Feedback on QA System Design
I'm in the beginning phases of creating a QA system and I want to make sure that the design decisions that I'm making now make sense and won't bite me in the butt later on. If you have even the ...
