Software QA/Testing Technical FAQs

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What is the difference between a software bug and software defect?
In software testing, the difference between "bug" and "defect" is small, and also depends on the end client. For some clients, bug and defect are synonymous, while others believe bugs are subsets of defects.
Difference number one: In bug reports, the defects are easier to describe.
Difference number two: In my bug reports, it is easier to write descriptions as to how to replicate defects. In other words, defects tend to require only brief explanations.
Commonality number one: We, software test engineers, discover both bugs and defects, before bugs and defects damage the reputation of our company.
Commonality number two: We, software QA engineers, use the software much like real users would, to find both bugs and defects, to find ways to replicate both bugs and defects, to submit bug reports to the developers, and to provide feedback to the developers, i.e. tell them if they've achieved the desired level of quality.
Commonality number three: We, software QA engineers, do not differentiate between bugs and defects. In our reports, we include both bugs and defects that are the results of software testing.

Are developers smarter than tester? Any suggestion about the future prospects and technicality involvedin the testing job?

Answer1:
QA & Testing are thankless jobs. In a software development company developer is a core person. As you are a fresh graduate, it would be good for you to work as a developer. From development you can always move to testing or QA or other admin/support tasks. But from Testing or QA it is little difficult to go back to development, though not impossible(as u are BE comp)
Seeing the job market, it is not possible for each & every fresher to get into development. But you can keep searching for it.
Some big company's have seperate Verifiction & Validation groups where only testing projects are executed. Those teams have TLs, PLs who are testing experts. They earn good salary same as development people.
In technical projects the testing team does lot of technical work. You can do certifications to improve your technical skills & market value.
It all depends on your way of handling things & interpersonal, communication and leadership skills. If it is difficult for you to get a job in developement or you really like testing, just go ahead. Try to achieve excellence as a testing professional. You will never have a job problem .Also you will always get onsite opportunities too!! Yuo might have to struggle for initial few years like all other freshers.

Answer2:
QA and Testing are thankless only in some companies.
Testing is part of development. Rather than distinguish between testing and development,distinguish between testing and programming.
Programming is also thankless in some companies.
Not suggesting that anyone should or should not go into testing. It depends on your skills and interests. Some people are better at programming and worse at testing, some better at testing and worse at programming, some are not suited for either role. You should decide what you are good at and what fascinates you. What type of work would make you WANT to stay at work for 60-80 hours a week for a few years because it is so interesting?
Suggesting that there are excellent testing jobs out there, but there are bad ones too (in testing and in programming, both).
Have not seen any certification in software testing that improves the technical skill of anyone. Apparently, testing certification improves a tester's market value in some markets.
Most companies mean testing when they say "QA". Or they mean Testing plus Metrics, where the metrics tasks are low-skill data collection and basic data analysis rather than thinking up and justifying measurement systems appropriate to the questions at hand. In terms of skill, salary, intellectual challenge and value to the company, testing+metrics is the same as testing. Some companies see QA more strategically, and hire more senior people into their groups. Here is a hint--if you can get a job in a group called QA with less than 5 years of experience, it's a testing group or something equivalent to it.

Answer3:
Nothing is considered as great or a mean job. As long as you like and love to do, everything in that seems to be interesting.
I started as a developer and slowly moved to Testing. I find testing to be more challenging and interesting. I have solid 6 years of testing experience alone and many sernior people are there in my team, who are professional testers.

Answer4:
testing is low-skill work in many companies.
Scripted testing of the kind pushed by ISEB, ISTQB, and the other certifiers is low skill, low prestige, offers little return value to the company that pays for it, and is often pushed to offsite contracting firms because it isn't worth doing in-house. In many cases, it is just a process of "going through the motions" -- pretending to do testing (and spending a lot of money in the pretense) but without really looking for any important information and without creating any artifacts that will be useful to the project team.
The only reason to take a job doing this kind of work is to get paid for it. Doing it for too long is bad for your career.
There are much higher-skill ways to do testing. Some of them involve partial automation (writing or using programs to help you investigate the program more effectively), but automation tools are just tools. They are often used just as mind-numbingly and valuelessly as scripted manual testing. When you're offered this kind of position, try to find out how much judgment you will have to exercise in the analysis of the product under test and the ways that it provides value to the users and other stakeholders, in the design of tests to check that value and to check for other threats to value (security failures, performance failures, usability failures, etc.)--and how much this position will help you develop your judgment. If you will become a more skilled and more creative investigator who has a better collection of tools to investigate with, that might be interesting. If not, you will be marking time (making money but learning little) while the rest of the technical world learns new ideas and skills.

What's the difference between priority and severity?
The word "priority" is associated with scheduling, and the word "severity" is associated with standards. "Priority" means something is afforded or deserves prior attention; a precedence established by urgency or order of or importance.
Severity is the state or quality of being severe; severe implies adherence to rigorous standards or high principles and often suggests harshness; severe is marked by or requires strict adherence to rigorous standards or high principles. For example, a severe code of behavior.
The words priority and severity do come up in bug tracking. A variety of commercial, problem-tracking / management software tools are available. These tools, with the detailed input of software test engineers, give the team complete information so developers can understand the bug, get an idea of its severity, reproduce it and fix it. The fixes are based on project priorities and severity of bugs. The severity of a problem is defined in accordance to the end client's risk assessment, and recorded in their selected tracking tool. A buggy software can severely affect schedules, which, in turn can lead to a reassessment and renegotiation of priorities.

How to test a web based application that has recently been modified to give support for Double Byte Character Sets?

Answer1:
should apply black box testing techniques (boundary analysis, equivalence partioning)

Answer2:
The Japanese and other East Asian Customers are very particular of the look and feel of the UI. So please make sure, there is no truncation at any place.
One Major difference between Japanese and English is that there is no concept of spaces between the words in Japanese. The line breaks in English usually happens whenever there is a Space. In Japanese this leads to a lot of problem with the wrapping on the text and if you have a table with defined column length, you might see text appearing vertical.
On the functionality side:
1. Check for the date format and Number format. (it should be in the native locale)
2. Check that your system accepts 2-byte numerals and characters.
3. If there is any fields with a boundary value of 100 characters, the field should accept, the same number of 2-byte character as well.
4. The application should work on a Native (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) OS as well as on an English OS with the language pack installed.
Writing a high level test plan for 2-byte support will require some knowledge of the application and its architecture.

What is the difference between software fault and software failure?
Software failure occurs when the software does not do what the user expects to see. Software fault, on the other hand, is a hidden programming error.
A software fault becomes a software failure only when the exact computation conditions are met, and the faulty portion of the code is executed on the CPU. This can occur during normal usage. Or, when the software is ported to a different hardware platform. Or, when the software is ported to a different complier. Or, when the software gets extended.

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