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Testing is used to verify that a program works as intended. Once a bug is found, testing (specifically, debugging) is used to track down the root cause of the problem.
Best Practice
Testing should be made as automatic as possible. It's extremely helpful to write tests before you run your program and discover some bug. That way the tests are more likely to discover the root cause of a bug. With this setup in place, tests can be run as you write new code to ensure the new code has not created any new problems.
Development stages
Alpha
Stage at which developer testing occurs.
Beta
Software that has now passed the Alpha stage. It is a prototype that has been released to the public to gather useful feedback.
Release candidate
Software is being considered for release if no serious bugs are found. if bugs are found a new release candidate will be released once they are fixed. If no major bugs are found it is released.
See Also
- Unit testing
- Error
- Exception
- Usability testing
- Assertion
- Formal methods
- Defensive programming