Program Testing Strategies

Programs need to be tested to check it works fully and meets the desired requirements. Different testing strategies are used to discover any bugs or errors in coding.


 Black Box Testing 

Only looks at inputs and outputs of the program. Does not consider how program works or how efficient it is. You are testing that when you input, that you get an expected output.

If you get an expected output, the test has passed. Any other output, the test has failed.


White Box Testing

 Test actual algorithm in code to check every part of the code works. The focus in this testing every single path of execution in program is testing. How efficient the code is also matters.


Alpha & Beta Testing

 Where the completed program as a whole is tested. When program is nearly complete. Often used by video games developers when there games are almost ready for release.

Alpha testing is usually done on employees of the company and maybe friends and family too. At this stage there are probably quite a lot of bugs in the code that need a fix, developers get feedback from testers and make these improvements.

Beta testing is usually completed by a large number of people (general public). Load testing on online game servers would be done at this point to see how the game performs when high volumes of people are playing it all at once. Developers will then make improvements to the software via feedback from testers and statistics of how the game is performing.


Acceptance Testing

 This is where the program is complete. The developer sits with the client and asks them to test the program as they will be using it. Any issues that arise or additional requests from the client will be resolved at this stage.

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