Software Testing (A Passion and your Area Of Interest)

Software Testing (A Passion and your Area Of Interest) 

Posted By - Abhishek Sharma

An Overview of Software Testing

Every software product has a target audience. For example, the audience for video game software is completely different from banking software. Therefore, when an organization develops or otherwise invests in a software product, it can assess whether the software product will be acceptable to its end users, its target audience, its purchasers, and other stakeholders. Software testing is the process of attempting to make this assessment.


A study conducted by NIST in 2002 reports that software bugs cost the U.S. economy $59.5 billion annually. More than a third of this cost could be avoided if better software testing was performed.


The separation of debugging from testing was initially introduced by Glenford J. Myers in 1979. Although his attention was on breakage testing ("a successful test is one that finds a bug) it illustrated the desire of the software engineering community to separate fundamental development activities, such as debugging, from that of verification.


Testing is a process used to help identify the correctness, completeness and quality of developed computer software. With that in mind, testing can never completely establish the correctness of computer software.


Software Testing can be defined as: Testing is an activity that helps in finding out bugs/defects/errors in a software system under development, in order to provide a bug free and reliable system/solution to the customer.


n other words, you can consider an example as: suppose you are a good cook and are expecting some guests at dinner. You start making dinner; you make few very very very delicious dishes (off-course, those which you already know how to make). And finally, when you are about to finish making the dishes, you ask someone (or you yourself) to check if everything is fine and there is no extra salt/chili/anything, which if is not in balance, can ruin your evening (This is what called 'TESTING').

This procedure you follow in order to make it sure that you do not serve your guests something that is not tasty! Otherwise your collar will go down and you will regret over your failure!


First query that must be arises that "Why we go for testing?". Ok, I can explain - Well, while making food, its good to have something extra, people might understand and eat the things you made and may well appreciate your work. But this isn't the case with Software Project Development. If you fail to deliver a reliable, good and problem free software solution, you fail in your project and probably you may loose your client. This can get even worse!

So in order to make it sure, that you provide your client a proper software solution, you go for TESTING. You check out if there is any problem, any error in the system, which can make software unusable by the client. You make software testers test the system and help in finding out the bugs in the system to fix them on time. You find out the problems and fix them and again try to find out all the potential problems.

Another query that are still in mind of you guys that "Why there is need of testing?". This is a right question because, prior to the concept of TESTING software as a ‘Testing Project’, the testing process existed, but the developer(s) did that at the time of development.

But you must know the fact that, if you make something, you hardly feel that there can be something wrong with what you have developed. It's a common trait of human nature, we feel that there is no problem in our designed system as we have developed it and it is perfectly functional and fully working. So the hidden bugs or errors or problems of the system remain hidden and they raise their head when the system goes into production.

On the other hand, its a fact that, when one person starts checking something which is made by some other person, there are 99% chances that checker/observer will find some problem with the system (even if the problem is with some spelling that by mistake has been written in wrong way.). Really weird, isn't it? But that’s a truth!

Even though its wrong in terms of human behavior, this thing has been used for the benefit of software projects (or you may say, any type of project). When you develop something, you give it to get checked (TEST) and to find out any problem, which never aroused while development of the system. Because, after all, if you could minimize the problems with the system you developed, it’s beneficial for yourself. Your client will be happy if your system works without any problem and will generate more revenues for you.


There are few phases and goals in software testing in the following stages:

• Until 1956   - Debugging oriented
• 1957–1978 - Demonstration oriented
• 1979–1982 - Destruction oriented
• 1983–1987 - Evaluation oriented
• 1988–2000 - Prevention oriented

Software Testing related to SDCL

Software Testing is one of the most important and most reliable part of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) :

Spiral Model

Bug

   A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's source code or its design, and a few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code. A program that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy. Reports detailing bugs in a program are commonly known as bug reports, fault reports, problem reports, trouble reports, change requests, and so forth.

Etymology :

The concept that software might contain errors dates back to 1843 in Ada Byron's notes on the analytical engine in which she speaks of the difficulty of preparing program 'cards' for Charles 


Babbage's Analytical engine:
“...an analyzing process must equally have been performed in order to furnish the Analytical Engine with the necessary operative data; and that herein may also lie a possible source of error. Granted that the actual mechanism is unerring in its processes, the cards may give it wrong orders.”


Use of the term "bug" to describe inexplicable defects has been a part of engineering jargon for many decades and predates computers and computer software; it may have originally been used in hardware engineering to describe mechanical malfunctions. For instance, Thomas Edison wrote the following words in a letter to an associate in 1878:


“It has been just so in all of my inventions. The first step is an intuition, and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise—this thing gives out and [it is] then that 'Bugs' — as such little faults and difficulties are called—show themselves and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success or failure is certainly reached”.



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Imagine having all of your data in the same place, being able to access it from anywhere in the world. You will know at a glance how many issues are in your account, how many are in progress, how many are closed. You will have a better overview of your project's development status.
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Role of a tester during testing

A tester is a person who tries to find out all possible errors/bugs in the system with the help of various inputs to it. A tester plays an important part in finding out the problems with system and helps in improving its quality.

Most important and an attractive question in mind is that "What is the role of "a tester"?". Here I would like to say that it it completely depends on you thinking, what you thinks about your roles and responsibilities in you current work. Nobody can answer for this query. Ok, I am still trying to give something to you.

As per my views "If you could find all the bugs and fix them all, your system becomes more and more reliable.

A tester has to understand the limits, which can make the system break and work abruptly. The more number of VALID BUGS tester finds out, the better tester he/she is!" 

Scope of Software testing

The primary function of software testing is to detect bugs in order to correct and uncover it. The scope of software testing includes execution of that code in various environment and also to examine the aspects of code - does the software do what it is supposed to do and function according to the specifications? As we move further we come across some questions such as "When to start testing?" and "When to stop testing?" It is recommended to start testing from the initial stages of the software development. This not only helps in rectifying tremendous errors before the last stage, but also reduces the rework of finding the bugs in the initial stages every now and then. It also saves the cost of the defect required to find it. Software testing is an ongoing process, which is potentially endless but has to be stopped somewhere, due to the lack of time and budget. It is required to achieve maximum profit with good quality product, within the limitations of time and money. The tester has to follow some procedural way through which he can judge if he covered all the points required for testing or missed out any. To help testers to carry out these day-to-day activities, a baseline has to be set, which is done in the form of checklists.

Scope of Software testing

• Defects and Failures: As we discussed earlier, defects are not caused only due to the coding errors, but most commonly due to the requirement gaps in the non-functional requirement, such as usability, testability, scalability, maintainability, performance and security. A failure is caused due to the deviation between an actual and an expected result. But not all defects result to failures. A defect can turn into a failure due to the change in the environment and or the change in the configuration of the system requirements.

• Input Combination and Preconditions: Testing all combination of inputs and initial state (preconditions), is not feasible. This means finding large number of infrequent defects is difficult.

• Static and Dynamic Analysis: Static testing does not require execution of the code for finding defects, whereas in dynamic testing, software code is executed to demonstrate the results of running tests.

• Verification and Validation: Software testing is done considering these two factors.
1. Verification: This verifies whether the product is done according to the specification?
2. Validation: This checks whether the product meets the customer requirement?

• Software Quality Assurance: Software testing is an important part of the software quality assurance. Quality assurance is an activity, which proves the suitability of the product by taking care of the quality of a product and ensuring that the customer requirements are met.

Topics for Software testing

1. Functional vs non-functional testing
2. Defects and failures
3. Finding faults early
4. Compatibility
5. Input combinations and preconditions
6. Static vs. dynamic testing
7. Software verification and validation
8. The software testing team
9. Software quality assurance (SQA)

    1. Functional vs non-functional testing : Functional testing refers to activities that verify a specific action or function of the code. These are usually found in the code requirements documentation, although some development methodologies work from use cases or user stories. Functional tests tend to answer the question of "can the user do this" or "does this particular feature work".

Non-functional testing refers to aspects of the software that may not be related to a specific function or user action, such as scalability or other performance, behavior under certain constraints, or security. Non-functional requirements tend to be those that reflect the quality of the product, particularly in the context of the suitability perspective of its users.

  2. Defects and Failures : Not all software defects are caused by coding errors. One common source of expensive defects is caused by requirement gaps, e.g., unrecognized requirements, that result in errors of omission by the program designer. A common source of requirements gaps is non-functional requirements such as testability, scalability, maintainability, usability, performance, and security.

Software faults occur through the following processes. A programmer makes an error (mistake), which results in a defect (fault, bug) in the software source code. If this defect is executed, in certain situations the system will produce wrong results, causing a failure. Not all defects will necessarily result in failures. For example, defects in dead code will never result in failures. A defect can turn into a failure when the environment is changed. Examples of these changes in environment include the software being run on a new hardware platform, alterations in source data or interacting with different software. A single defect may result in a wide range of failure symptoms.

  3. Finding faults early : It is commonly believed that the earlier a defect is found the cheaper it is to fix it. The following table shows the cost of fixing the defect depending on the stage it was found. For example, if a problem in the requirements is found only post-release, then it would cost 10–100 times more to fix than if it had already been found by the requirements review.

  4. Compatibility : A common cause of software failure (real or perceived) is a lack of compatibility with other application software, operating systems (or operating system versions, old or new), or target environments that differ greatly from the original (such as a terminal or GUI application intended to be run on the desktop now being required to become a web application, which must render in a web browser). For example, in the case of a lack of backward compatibility, this can occur because the programmers develop and test software only on the latest version of the target environment, which not all users may be running. This results in the unintended consequence that the latest work may not function on earlier versions of the target environment, or on older hardware that earlier versions of the target environment was capable of using. Sometimes such issues can be fixed by proactively abstracting operating system functionality into a separate program module or library.

  5. Input combinations and preconditions : A very fundamental problem with software testing is that testing under all combinations of inputs and preconditions (initial state) is not feasible, even with a simple product. This means that the number of defects in a software product can be very large and defects that occur infrequently are difficult to find in testing. More significantly, non-functional dimensions of quality (how it is supposed to be versus what it is supposed to do)—usability, scalability, performance, compatibility, reliability—can be highly subjective; something that constitutes sufficient value to one person may be intolerable to another.

  6. Static vs. dynamic testing : There are many approaches to software testing. Reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections are considered as static testing, whereas actually executing programmed code with a given set of test cases is referred to as dynamic testing. Static testing can be (and unfortunately in practice often is) omitted. Dynamic testing takes place when the program itself is used for the first time (which is generally considered the beginning of the testing stage). Dynamic testing may begin before the program is 100% complete in order to test particular sections of code (modules or discrete functions). Typical techniques for this are either using stubs/drivers or execution from a debugger environment. For example, spreadsheet programs are, by their very nature, tested to a large extent interactively ("on the fly"), with results displayed immediately after each calculation or text manipulation.

  7. Software verification and validation : Software testing is used in association with verification and validation:

Verification : Have we built the software right? (i.e., does it match the specification).

Validation : Have we built the right software? (i.e., is this what the customer wants).

The terms verification and validation are commonly used interchangeably in the industry; it is also common to see these two terms incorrectly defined. According to the IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology:

Verification is the process of evaluating a system or component to determine whether the products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of that phase.

Validation is the process of evaluating a system or component during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies specified requirements.

  8. The software testing team : Software testing can be done by software testers. Until the 1980s the term "software tester" was used generally, but later it was also seen as a separate profession. Regarding the periods and the different goals in software testing, different roles have been established: manager, test lead, test designer, tester, automation developer, and test administrator.

  9. Software quality assurance (SQA) : Though controversial, software testing is a part of the software quality assurance (SQA) process. In SQA, software process specialists and auditors are concerned for the software development process rather than just the artifacts such as documentation, code and systems. They examine and change the software engineering process itself to reduce the amount of faults that end up in the delivered software: the so-called defect rate.

What constitutes an "acceptable defect rate" depends on the nature of the software; A flight simulator video game would have much higher defect tolerance than software for an actual airplane.

Although there are close links with SQA, testing departments often exist independently, and there may be no SQA function in some companies.

Software testing is a task intended to detect defects in software by contrasting a computer program's expected results with its actual results for a given set of inputs. By contrast, QA (quality assurance) is the implementation of policies and procedures intended to prevent defects from occurring in the first place.

Software Testing Types or Methods or approaches 

• White Box Testing : White box testing strategy deals with the internal logic and structure of the code. White box testing is also called as glass, structural, open box or clear box testing. The tests written based on the white box testing strategy incorporate coverage of the code written, branches, paths, statements and internal logic of the code etc.
  
  In order to implement white box testing, the tester has to deal with the code and hence is needed to possess knowledge of coding and logic i.e. internal working of the code. White box test also needs the tester to look into the code and find out which unit/statement/chunk of the code is malfunctioning.
  
  Advantages of White box testing are:
  i) As the knowledge of internal coding structure is prerequisite, it becomes very easy to find out which type of input/data can help in testing the application effectively.
  ii) The other advantage of white box testing is that it helps in optimizing the code
  iii) It helps in removing the extra lines of code, which can bring in hidden defects.
  
  Disadvantages of white box testing are:
  i) As knowledge of code and internal structure is a prerequisite, a skilled tester is needed to carry out this type of testing, which increases the cost.
  ii) And it is nearly impossible to look into every bit of code to find out hidden errors, which may create problems, resulting in failure of the application.

• Black Box Testing : Black Box Testing is not a type of testing; it instead is a testing strategy, which does not need any knowledge of internal design or code etc. As the name "black box" suggests, no knowledge of internal logic or code structure is required. The types of testing under this strategy are totally based/focused on the testing for requirements and functionality of the work product/software application. Black box testing is sometimes also called as "Opaque Testing", "Functional/Behavioral Testing" and "Closed Box Testing".
  
  The base of the Black box testing strategy lies in the selection of appropriate data as per functionality and testing it against the functional specifications in order to check for normal and abnormal behavior of the system. Now a days, it is becoming common to route the Testing work to a third party as the developer of the system knows too much of the internal logic and coding of the system, which makes it unfit to test the application by the developer.
  
  In order to implement Black Box Testing Strategy, the tester is needed to be thorough with the requirement specifications of the system and as a user, should know, how the system should behave in response to the particular action.
  
  Various testing types that fall under the Black Box Testing strategy are: functional testing, stress testing, recovery testing, volume testing, User Acceptance Testing (also known as UAT), system testing, Sanity or Smoke testing, load testing, Usability testing, Exploratory testing, ad-hoc testing, alpha testing, beta testing etc.

• Gray Box Testing : Intermediate testing between Black box and White box testing. It is a translucent testing.

Testing Levels

Following are the testing levels :


Unit Testing:
The developer carries out unit testing in order to check if the particular module or unit of code is working fine. The Unit Testing comes at the very basic level as it is carried out as and when the unit of the code is developed or a particular functionality is built.

Static and dynamic Analysis:
Static analysis involves going through the code in order to find out any possible defect in the code. Dynamic analysis involves executing the code and analyzing the output.

Statement Coverage:
In this type of testing the code is executed in such a manner that every statement of the application is executed at least once. It helps in assuring that all the statements execute without any side effect.

Branch Coverage:
No software application can be written in a continuous mode of coding, at some point we need to branch out the code in order to perform a particular functionality. Branch coverage testing helps in validating of all the branches in the code and making sure that no branching leads to abnormal behavior of the application.

Security Testing:
Security Testing is carried out in order to find out how well the system can protect itself from unauthorized access, hacking – cracking, any code damage etc. which deals with the code of application. This type of testing needs sophisticated testing techniques.

Mutation Testing:
A kind of testing in which, the application is tested for the code that was modified after fixing a particular bug/defect. It also helps in finding out which code and which strategy of coding can help in developing the functionality effectively.

Besides all the testing types given above, there are some more types which fall under both Black box and White box testing strategies such as: Functional testing (which deals with the code in order to check its functional performance), Incremental integration testing (which deals with the testing of newly added code in the application), Performance and Load testing (which helps in finding out how the particular code manages resources and give performance etc.) etc.

Integration Testing:

Integration testing is any type of software testing that seeks to verify the interfaces between components against a software design. Software components may be integrated in an iterative way or all together ("big bang"). Normally the former is considered a better practice since it allows interface issues to be localised more quickly and fixed.

Integration works to expose defects in the interfaces and interaction between integrated components (modules). Progressively larger groups of tested software components corresponding to elements of the architectural design are integrated and tested until the software works as a system.

Integration Testing: Integration testing tests a completely integrated system to verify that it meets its requirements

System Integration Testing: System integration testing verifies that a system is integrated to any external or third-party systems defined in the system requirements.

Regression Testing: Regression testing focuses on finding defects after a major code change has occurred. Specifically, it seeks to uncover software regressions, or old bugs that have come back. Such regressions occur whenever software functionality that was previously working correctly stops working as intended. Typically, regressions occur as an unintended consequence of program changes, when the newly developed part of the software collides with the previously existing code. Common methods of regression testing include re-running previously run tests and checking whether previously fixed faults have re-emerged. The depth of testing depends on the phase in the release process and the risk of the added features. They can either be complete, for changes added late in the release or deemed to be risky, to very shallow, consisting of positive tests on each feature, if the changes are early in the release or deemed to be of low risk.


Acceptance Testing: 
Acceptance testing can mean one of two things:
A smoke test is used as an acceptance test prior to introducing a new build to the main testing process, i.e. before integration or regression.
Acceptance testing is performed by the customer, often in their lab environment on their own hardware, is known as user acceptance testing (UAT). Acceptance testing may be performed as part of the hand-off process between any two phases of development.[citation needed]


1. Alpha testing:
Alpha testing is simulated or actual operational testing by potential users/customers or an independent test team at the developers' site. Alpha testing is often employed for off-the-shelf software as a form of internal acceptance testing, before the software goes to beta testing.


2. Beta testing:
Beta testing comes after alpha testing and can be considered a form of external user acceptance testing. Versions of the software, known as beta versions, are released to a limited audience outside of the programming team. The software is released to groups of people so that further testing can ensure the product has few faults or bugs. Sometimes, beta versions are made available to the open public to increase the feedback field to a maximal number of future users.



Stability testing:
Stability testing checks to see if the software can continuously function well in or above an acceptable period. This activity of non-functional software testing is often referred to as load (or endurance) testing.


Usability testing:
Usability testing is needed to check if the user interface is easy to use and understand. It is concerned mainly with the use of the application.


Security testing:
Security testing is essential for software that processes confidential data to prevent system intrusion by hackers.


Internationalization and localization:
The general ability of software to be internationalized and localized can be automatically tested without actual translation, by using pseudolocalization. It will verify that the application still works, even after it has been translated into a new language or adapted for a new culture (such as different currencies or time zones).


Actual translation to human languages must be tested, too. Possible localization failures include:

• Software is often localized by translating a list of strings out of context, and the translator may choose the wrong translation for an ambiguous source string.
• Technical terminology may become inconsistent if the project is translated by several people without proper coordination or if the translator is imprudent.
• Literal word-for-word translations may sound inappropriate, artificial or too technical in the target language.
• Untranslated messages in the original language may be left hard coded in the source code.
• Some messages may be created automatically at run time and the resulting string may be ungrammatical, functionally incorrect, misleading or confusing.
• Software may use a keyboard shortcut which has no function on the source language's keyboard layout, but is used for typing characters in the layout of the target language.
• Software may lack support for the character encoding of the target language.
• Fonts and font sizes which are appropriate in the source language, may be inappropriate in the target language; for example, CJK characters may become unreadable if the font is too small.
• A string in the target language may be longer than the software can handle. This may make the string partly invisible to the user or cause the software to crash or malfunction.
• Software may lack proper support for reading or writing bi-directional text.
• Software may display images with text that wasn't localized.
• Localized operating systems may have differently-named system configuration files and environment variables and different formats for date and currency.
• To avoid these and other localization problems, a tester who knows the target language must run the program with all the possible use cases for translation to see if the messages are readable, translated correctly in context and don't cause failures.

Destructive testing:
Destructive testing attempts to cause the software or a sub-system to fail, in order to test its robustness.

Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

Although variations exist between organizations, there is a typical cycle for testing. The sample below is common among organizations employing the Waterfall development model.

• Requirements analysis: Testing should begin in the requirements phase of the software development life cycle. During the design phase, testers work with developers in determining what aspects of a design are testable and with what parameters those tests work.
• Test planning: Test strategy, test plan, testbed creation. Since many activities will be carried out during testing, a plan is needed.
• Test development: Test procedures, test scenarios, test cases, test datasets, test scripts to use in testing software.
• Test execution: Testers execute the software based on the plans and test documents then report any errors found to the development team.
• Test reporting: Once testing is completed, testers generate metrics and make final reports on their test effort and whether or not the software tested is ready for release.
• Test result analysis: Or Defect Analysis, is done by the development team usually along with the client, in order to decide what defects should be treated, fixed, rejected (i.e. found software working properly) or deferred to be dealt with later.
• Defect Retesting: Once a defect has been dealt with by the development team, it is retested by the testing team. AKA Resolution testing.
• Regression testing: It is common to have a small test program built of a subset of tests, for each integration of new, modified, or fixed software, in order to ensure that the latest delivery has not ruined anything, and that the software product as a whole is still working correctly.
• Test Closure: Once the test meets the exit criteria, the activities such as capturing the key outputs, lessons learned, results, logs, documents related to the project are archived and used as a reference for future projects.

Testing Artifacts

The software testing process can produce several artifacts.


Test plan 
A test specification is called a test plan. The developers are well aware what test plans will be executed and this information is made available to management and the developers. The idea is to make them more cautious when developing their code or making additional changes. Some companies have a higher-level document called a test strategy.


Traceability matrix 
A traceability matrix is a table that correlates requirements or design documents to test documents. It is used to change tests when the source documents are changed, or to verify that the test results are correct.


Test case 
A test case normally consists of a unique identifier, requirement references from a design specification, preconditions, events, a series of steps (also known as actions) to follow, input, output, expected result, and actual result. Clinically defined a test case is an input and an expected result. This can be as pragmatic as 'for condition x your derived result is y', whereas other test cases described in more detail the input scenario and what results might be expected. It can occasionally be a series of steps (but often steps are contained in a separate test procedure that can be exercised against multiple test cases, as a matter of economy) but with one expected result or expected outcome. The optional fields are a test case ID, test step, or order of execution number, related requirement(s), depth, test category, author, and check boxes for whether the test is automatable and has been automated. Larger test cases may also contain prerequisite states or steps, and descriptions. A test case should also contain a place for the actual result. These steps can be stored in a word processor document, spreadsheet, database, or other common repository. In a database system, you may also be able to see past test results, who generated the results, and what system configuration was used to generate those results. These past results would usually be stored in a separate table.


Test script 
The test script is procedure, or a programing code that replicate the user actions. Initially the term was derived from the product of work created by automated regression test tools. Test Case will be a baseline to create test scripts using a tool or a program.


Test suite 
The most common term for a collection of test cases is a test suite. The test suite often also contains more detailed instructions or goals for each collection of test cases. It definitely contains a section where the tester identifies the system configuration used during testing. A group of test cases may also contain prerequisite states or steps, and descriptions of the following tests.


Test data 
In most cases, multiple sets of values or data are used to test the same functionality of a particular feature. All the test values and changeable environmental components are collected in separate files and stored as test data. It is also useful to provide this data to the client and with the product or a 
project.


Test harness 
The software, tools, samples of data input and output, and configurations are all referred to collectively as a test harness.

Controversy about Software Testing

Some of the major software testing controversies include:

What constitutes responsible software testing? 

Members of the "context-driven" school of testing believe that there are no "best practices" of testing, but rather that testing is a set of skills that allow the tester to select or invent testing practices to suit each unique situation.

Agile vs. traditional 

Should testers learn to work under conditions of uncertainty and constant change or should they aim at process "maturity"? The agile testing movement has received growing popularity since 2006 mainly in commercial circles, whereas government and military software providers use this methodology but also the traditional test-last models (e.g. in the Waterfall model).[citation needed]

Exploratory test vs. scripted

Should tests be designed at the same time as they are executed or should they be designed beforehand?

Manual testing vs. automated 

Some writers believe that test automation is so expensive relative to its value that it should be used sparingly. More in particular, test-driven development states that developers should write unit-tests of the XUnit type before coding the functionality. The tests then can be considered as a way to capture and implement the requirements.

Software design vs. software implementation

Should testing be carried out only at the end or throughout the whole process?

Who watches the watchmen? 

The idea is that any form of observation is also an interaction—the act of testing can also affect that which is being tested.

I tried to suggest all the most important topics and headings of Software Testing. Hope you will get a good support with use of this particular blog.

In case of any issue, please let me know and please give your feedback and suggestions.