Interview Quesions

Software QA and Testing Frequently-Asked-Questions:

1.What is ‘Software Quality Assurance’?
2.What is ‘Software Testing’?
3.What are some recent major computer system failures
  caused by software bugs?
4.Why is it often hard for management to get serious
  about quality assurance?
5.Why does software have bugs?
6.How can new Software QA processes be introduced in
  an existing organization?
7.What is verification? Validation?
8.What is a ‘walkthrough’?
9.What’s an inspection’?
10.What kinds of testing should be considered?
11.What are 5 common problems in the software development
   process?
12.What are 5 common solutions to software development problems?
13.What is software ‘quality’?
14.What is ‘good code’?
15.What is ‘good design’?
16.What is SEI? CMM? ISO? Will it help?
17.What is the ’software life cycle’?
18.Will automated testing tools make testing easier?
 

Answers:

What is ‘Software Quality Assurance’?

Ans:Software QA involves the entire software development
    PROCESS monitoring and improving the process,making sure
    that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed,
    and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with.It is
    oriented to ‘prevention’.

What is ‘Software Testing’?

Ans:Testing involves operation of a system or application
    under controlled conditions and evaluating the results
    (eg,’if the user is in interface A of the application while
    using hardware B, and does C, then D should happen’).The
    controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal
    conditions. Testing should intentionally attempt to make
    things go wrong to determine if things happen when they
    shouldn’t or things don’t happen when they should.It is
    oriented to ‘detection’. Organizations vary considerably in
    how they assign responsibility for QA and testing.Sometimes
    they’re the combined responsibility of one group or individual.
    Also common are project teams that include a mix of testers and
    developers who work closely together, with overall QA processes
    monitored by project managers. It will depend on what best fits
    an organization’s size and business structure.

What are some recent major computer system failures caused by
software bugs?

Ans:
•In August of 2003 a U.S. court ruled that a lawsuit against large
 online brokerage company could proceed; the lawsuit reportedly
 involved claims that the company was not fixing system problems
 that sometimes resulted in failed stock trades, based on the
 experiences of 4 plaintiffs during an 8-month period. A previous
 lower court’s ruling that “…six miscues out of more than 400
 trades does not indicate negligence.” was invalidated.
•In April of 2003 it was announced that the largest student loan
 company in the U.S. made a software error in calculating the
 monthly payments on 800,000 loans. Although borrowers were to be
 notified of an increase in their required payments, the company
 will still reportedly lose $8 million in interest. The error was
 uncovered when borrowers began reporting inconsistencies in their
 bills.
•News reports in February of 2003 revealed that the U.S. Treasury
 Department mailed 50,000 Social Security checks without any
 beneficiary names. A spokesperson indicated that the missing
 names were due to an error in a software change. Replacement
 checks were subsequently mailed out with the problem corrected,
 and recipients were then able to cash their Social Security checks.
•In March of 2002 it was reported that software bugs in Britain’s
 national tax system resulted in more than 100,000 erroneous tax
 overcharges. The problem was partly attributed to the difficulty
 of testing the integration of multiple systems.
•A newspaper columnist reported in July 2001 that a serious flaw
 was found in off-the-shelf software that had long been used in
 systems for tracking certain U.S. nuclear materials. The same
 software had been recently donated to another country to be used
 in tracking their own nuclear materials, and it was not until
 scientists in that country discovered the problem, and shared the
 information, that U.S. officials became aware of the problems.
•According to newspaper stories in mid-2001, a major systems
 development contractor was fired and sued over problems with a
 large retirement plan management system. According to the reports,
 the client claimed that system deliveries were late, the software
 had excessive defects, and it caused other systems to crash.
•In January of 2001 newspapers reported that a major European
 railroad was hit by the aftereffects of the Y2K bug.The company
 found that many of their newer trains would not run due to their
 inability to recognize the date ‘31/12/2000′; the trains were
 started by altering the control system’s date settings.
•News reports in September of 2000 told of a software vendor
 settling a lawsuit with a large mortgage lender; the vendor
 had reportedly delivered an online mortgage processing system
 that did not meet specifications, was delivered late, and
 didn’t work.
•In early 2000, major problems were reported with a new computer
 system in a large suburban U.S. public school district with
 100,000+ students; problems included 10,000 erroneous report
 cards and students left stranded by failed class registration
 systems; the district’s CIO was fired. The school district
 decided to reinstate it’s original 25-year old system for at
 least a year until the bugs were worked out of the new system
 by the software vendors.
•In October of 1999 the $125 million NASA Mars Climate Orbiter
 spacecraft was believed to be lost in space due to a simple
 data conversion error. It was determined that spacecraft
 software used certain data in English units that should have
 been in metric units. Among other tasks, the orbiter was to
 serve as a communications relay for the Mars Polar Lander mission,
 which failed for unknown reasons in December 1999. Several
 investigating panels were convened to determine the process
 failures that allowed the error to go undetected.
•Bugs in software supporting a large commercial high-speed data
 network affected 70,000 business customers over a period of 8
 days in August of 1999. Among those affected was the electronic
 trading system of the largest U.S. futures exchange, which was
 shut down for most of a week as a result of the outages.
•In April of 1999 a software bug caused the failure of a $1.2
 billion U.S. military satellite launch, the costliest unmanned
 accident in the history of Cape Canaveral launches. The failure
 was the latest in a string of launch failures, triggering a
 complete military and industry review of U.S. space launch
 programs, including software integration and testing processes.
 Congressional oversight hearings were requested.
•A small town in Illinois in the U.S. received an unusually large
 monthly electric bill of $7 million in March of 1999. This was
 about 700 times larger than its normal bill. It turned out to be
 due to bugs in new software that had been purchased by the local
 power company to deal with Y2K software issues.
•In early 1999 a major computer game company recalled all copies
 of a popular new product due to software problems. The company
 made a public apology for releasing a product before it was ready.
•The computer system of a major online U.S. stock trading service
 failed during trading hours several times over a period of days
 in February of 1999 according to nationwide news reports. The
 problem was reportedly due to bugs in a software upgrade intended
 to speed online trade confirmations.
•In April of 1998 a major U.S. data communications network failed
 for 24 hours, crippling a large part of some U.S. credit card
 transaction authorization systems as well as other large U.S. bank,
 retail, and government data systems. The cause was eventually
 traced to a software bug.
•January 1998 news reports told of software problems at a major U.S.
 telecommunications company that resulted in no charges for long
 distance calls for a month for 400,000 customers. The problem went
 undetected until customers called up with questions about their bills.
•In November of 1997 the stock of a major health industry company
 dropped 60% due to reports of failures in computer billing systems,
 problems with a large database conversion, and inadequate software
 testing. It was reported that more than $100,000,000 in receivables
 had to be written off and that multi-million dollar fines were
 levied on the company by government agencies.
•A retail store chain filed suit in August of 1997 against a
 transaction processing system vendor (not a credit card company)
 due to the software’s inability to handle credit cards with year
 2000 expiration dates.
•In August of 1997 one of the leading consumer credit reporting
 companies reportedly shut down their new public web site after
 less than two days of operation due to software problems. The
 new site allowed web site visitors instant access, for a small
 fee, to their personal credit reports. However, a number of
 initial users ended up viewing each other’s reports instead of
 their own, resulting in irate customers and nationwide publicity.
 The problem was attributed to “…unexpectedly high demand from
 consumers and faulty software that routed the files to the wrong
 computers.”
•In November of 1996, newspapers reported that software bugs caused
 the 411-telephone information system of one of the U.S. RBOC’s to
 fail for most of a day. Most of the 2000 operators had to search
 through phone books instead of using their 13,000,000-listing
 database. The bugs were introduced by new software modifications
 and the problem software had been installed on both the production
 and backup systems.A spokesman for the software vendor reportedly
 stated that ‘It had nothing to do with the integrity of the
 software. It was human error.’
•On June 4 1996 the first flight of the European Space Agency’s new
 Ariane 5 rocket failed shortly after launching, resulting in an
 estimated uninsured loss of a half billion dollars. It was
 reportedly due to the lack of exception handling of a floating
 -point error in a conversion from a 64-bit integer to a 16-bit
 signed integer.
•Software bugs caused the bank accounts of 823 customers of a major
 U.S. bank to be credited with $924,844,208.32 each in May of 1996,
 according to newspaper reports. The American Bankers Association
 claimed it was the largest such error in banking history. A bank
 spokesman said the programming errors were corrected and all funds
 were recovered.
•Software bugs in a Soviet early-warning monitoring system nearly
 brought on nuclear war in 1983, according to news reports in early
 1999. The software was supposed to filter out false missile
 detections caused by Soviet satellites picking up sunlight
 reflections off cloud-tops, but failed to do so. Disaster was
 averted when a Soviet commander, based on a what he said was a
 ’…funny feeling in my gut’, decided the apparent missile attack
 was a false alarm. The filtering software code was rewritten.

Why is it often hard for management to get serious about quality
assurance?
Solving problems is a high-visibility process; preventing problems
is low-visibility. This is illustrated by an old parable:
In ancient China there was a family of healers, one of whom was
known throughout the land and employed as a physician to a great
lord. The physician was asked which of his family was the most
skillful healer. He replied,
“I tend to the sick and dying with drastic and dramatic treatments,
and on occasion someone is cured and my name gets out among the lords.
“My elder brother cures sickness when it just begins to take root,
 and his skills are known among the local peasants and neighbors.”
“My eldest brother is able to sense the spirit of sickness and
 eradicate it before it takes form. His name is unknown outside our
 home.”

Why does software have bugs?
•Miscommunication or no communication - as to specifics of what an
application should or shouldn’t do (the application’s requirements).
•Software complexity - the complexity of current software
 applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without
 experience in modern-day  software development. Windows-type
 interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data
 communications, enormous relational databases, and sheer size of
 applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in
 software/system complexity. And the use of object-oriented
 techniques can complicate instead of simplify a project unless
 it is well engineered.
•Programming errors - programmers, like anyone else, can make
 mistakes.
•Changing requirements - the customer may not understand the
 effects of changes, or may understand and request them anyway
 - redesign, rescheduling of engineers, effects on other projects,
 work already completed that may have to be redone or thrown out,
 hardware requirements that may be affected, etc. If there are many
 minor changes or any major changes, known and unknown dependencies
 among parts of the project are likely to interact and cause
 problems, and the complexity of keeping track of changes may result
 in errors. Enthusiasm of engineering staff may be affected. In
 some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified
 requirements may be a fact of life.In this case, management must
 understand the resulting risks,and QA and test engineers must adapt
 and plan for continuous extensive testing to keep the inevitable
 bugs from running out of control.
•Time pressures - scheduling of software projects is difficult at
 best, often requiring a lot of guesswork. When deadlines loom and
 the crunch comes, mistakes will be made.
•Egos - people prefer to say things like:
•’no problem’
•’piece of cake’
•’I can whip that out in a few hours’
•’it should be easy to update that old code’
•instead of:
•’that adds a lot of complexity and we could end up
•making a lot of mistakes’
•’we have no idea if we can do that; we’ll wing it’
•’I can’t estimate how long it will take, until I
•take a close look at it’
•’we can’t figure out what that old spaghetti code
•did in the first place’
•If there are too many unrealistic ‘no problem’s’, the
•result is bugs.
•Poorly documented code - it’s tough to maintain and modify code
 that is badly written or poorly documented; the result is bugs.
 In many organizations management provides no incentive for
 programmers to document their code or write clear,understandable
 code. In fact, it’s usually the opposite: they get points mostly
 for quickly turning out code, and there’s job security if nobody
 else can understand it (’if it was hard to write,it should be hard
 to read’).
•Software development tools - visual tools, class libraries,
 compilers, scripting tools, etc. often introduce their own bugs
 or are poorly documented, resulting in added bugs.

How can new Software QA processes be introduced in an existing
organization?
•A lot depends on the size of the organization and the risks
 involved. For large organizations with high-risk (in terms of
 lives or property) projects, serious management buy-in is
 required and a formalized QA process is necessary.
•Where the risk is lower, management and organizational buy-in
 and QA implementation may be a slower, step-at-a-time process.
 QA processes should be balanced with productivity so as to keep
 bureaucracy from getting out of hand.
•For small groups or projects, a more ad-hoc process may be
 appropriate, depending on the type of customers and projects.
 A lot will depend on team leads or managers,feedback to developers,
 and ensuring adequate communications among customers, managers,
 developers, and testers.
•In all cases the most value for effort will be in requirements
 management processes, with a goal of clear, complete, testable
 requirement specifications or expectations.

What is verification? validation?
Verification typically involves reviews and meetings to evaluate
documents, plans, code, requirements, and specifications.This can
be done with checklists,issues lists,walkthroughs,and inspection
meetings.Validation typically involves actual testing and takes
place after verifications are completed. The term ‘IV & V’ refers
to Independent Verification and Validation.

What is a ‘walkthrough’?
A ‘walkthrough’ is an informal meeting for evaluation or
informational purposes. Little or no preparation is usually
required.

What’s an ‘inspection’?
An inspection is more formalized than a ‘walkthrough’, typically
with 3-8 people including a moderator, reader, and a recorder to
take notes. The subject of the inspection is typically a document
such as a requirements spec or a test plan, and the purpose is to
find problems and see what’s missing,not to fix anything.Attendees
should prepare for this type of meeting by reading thrrough the
document; most problems will be found during this preparation.
The result of the inspection meeting should be a written report.
Thorough preparation for inspections is difficult,painstaking work,
but is one of the most cost effective methods of ensuring quality.
Employees who are most skilled at inspections are like the ‘eldest
brother’ in the parable in ‘Why is it often hard for management to
get serious about quality assurance?’. Their skill may have low
visibility but they are extremely valuable to any software
development organization, since bug prevention is far more
cost-effective than bug detection.

What kinds of testing should be considered?
•Black box testing - not based on any knowledge of internal design
or code. Tests are based on requirements and functionality.
•White box testing - based on knowledge of the internal logic of
an application’s code. Tests are based on coverage of code
statements, branches, paths, conditions.
•Unit testing - the most ‘micro’ scale of testing; to test
 particular functions or code modules. Typically done by the
 programmer and not by testers,as it requires detailed knowledge
 of the internal program design and code. Not always easily done
 unless the application has a well-designed architecture with
 tight code; may require developing test driver modules or test
 harnesses.
•Incremental integration testing - continuous testing of an
 application as new functionality is added; requires that various
 aspects of an application’s functionality be independent enough
 to work separately before all parts of the program are completed,
 or that test drivers be developed as needed; done by programmers
 or by testers.
•Integration testing - testing of combined parts of an application
 to determine if they function together correctly.The ‘parts’ can be
 code modules,individual applications,client and server applications
 on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to
 client/server and distributed systems.
•Functional testing - black box type testing geared to functional
 requirements of an application; this type of testing should be
 done by testers. This doesn’t mean that the programmers shouldn’t
 check that their code works before releasing it (which of course
 applies to any stage of testing.)
•System testing - black box type testing that is based on overall
 requirements specifications; covers all combined parts of a system.
•End-to-end testing - similar to system testing; the ‘macro’ end of
 the test scale; involves testing of a complete application
 environment in a situation that mimics real-world use, such as
 interacting with a database, using network communications, or
 interacting with other hardware, applications, or systems if
 appropriate.
•Sanity testing - typically an initial testing effort to determine
 if a new software version is performing well enough to accept it
 for a major testing effort. For example, if the new software is
 crashing systems every 5 minutes, bogging down systems to a crawl,
 or destroying databases,the software may not be in a ’sane’ enough
 condition to warrant further testing in its current state.
•Regression testing - re-testing after fixes or modifications of the
 software or its environment. It can be difficult to determine how
 much re-testing is needed,especially near the end of the development
 cycle.Automated testing tools can be especially useful for this type
 of testing.
•Acceptance testing - final testing based on specifications of the
 end-user or customer, or based on use by end-users/customers over
 some limited period of time.
•Load testing - testing an application under heavy loads, such as
 testing of a web site under a range of loads to determine at what
 point the system’s response time degrades or fails.
•Stress testing - term often used interchangeably with ‘load’ and
 ’performance’ testing. Also used to describe such tests as system
 functional testing while under unusually heavy loads, heavy
 repetition of certain actions or inputs,input of large numerical
 values, large complex queries to a database system, etc.
•Performance testing - term often used interchangeably with
 ’stress’ and ‘load’ testing. Ideally ‘performance’ testing
 (and any other ‘type’ of testing) is defined in requirements
 documentation or QA or Test Plans.
•Usability testing - testing for ‘user-friendliness’.Clearly this
 is subjective,and will depend on the targeted end-user or customer.
 User interviews,surveys,video recording of user sessions,and other
 techniques can be used. Programmers and testers are usually not
 appropriate as usability testers.
•Install/uninstall testing - testing of full, partial, or upgrade
 install/uninstall processes.
•Recovery testing - testing how well a system recovers from crashes,
 hardware failures, or other catastrophic problems.
•Security testing - testing how well the system protects against
 unauthorized internal or external access, willful damage, etc; may
 require sophisticated testing techniques.
•Compatibility testing - testing how well software performs in a
 particular hardware/software/operating system/network/etc.
 environment.
•Exploratory testing - often taken to mean a creative, informal
 software test that is not based on formal test plans or test cases;
 testers may be learning the software as they test it.
•Ad-hoc testing - similar to exploratory testing, but often taken
 to mean that the testers have significant understanding of the
 software before testing it.
•User acceptance testing - determining if software is satisfactory
 to an end-user or customer.
•Comparison testing - comparing software weaknesses and strengths
 to competing products.
•Alpha testing - testing of an application when development is
 nearing completion; minor design changes may still be made as
 a result of such testing. Typically done by end-users or others,
 not by programmers or testers.
•Beta testing - testing when development and testing are
 essentially completed and final bugs and problems need to
 be found before final release. Typically done by end-users
 or others, not by programmers or testers.
•Mutation testing - a method for determining if a set of test
 data or test cases is useful,by deliberately introducing various
 code changes (’bugs’) and retesting with the original test
 data/cases to determine if the ‘bugs’ are detected. Proper
 implementation requires large computational resources.

What are 5 common problems in the software development process?
•Poor requirements - if requirements are unclear,incomplete,too
 general, or not testable, there will be problems.
•Unrealistic schedule - if too much work is crammed in too little
 time, problems are inevitable.
•Inadequate testing - no one will know whether or not the program
 is any good until the customer complains or systems crash.
•Futurities - requests to pile on new features after development
 is underway; extremely common.
•Miscommunication - if developers don’t know what’s needed or
 customer’s have erroneous expectations, problems are guaranteed.

What are 5 common solutions to software development problems?
•Solid requirements - clear, complete, detailed, cohesive,
 attainable, testable requirements that are agreed to by all
 players. Use prototypes to help nail down requirements.
•Realistic schedules - allow adequate time for planning,design,
 testing, bug fixing, re-testing, changes, and documentation;
 personnel should be able to complete the project without
 burning out.
•Adequate testing - start testing early on, re-test after fixes
 or changes, plan for adequate time for testing and bug fixing.
•Stick to initial requirements as much as possible - be prepared
 to defend against changes and additions once development has begun,
 and be prepared to explain consequences. If changes are necessary,
 they should be adequately reflected in related schedule changes.
 If possible, use rapid prototyping during the design phase so that
 customers can see what to expect. This will provide them a higher
 comfort level with their requirements decisions and minimize
 changes later on.
•Communication - require walkthroughs and inspections when
 appropriate; make extensive use of group communication tools
 - e-mail, groupware, networked bug-tracking tools and change
 management tools, intranet capabilities, etc.; insure that
 documentation is available and up-to-date - preferably electronic,
 not paper; promote teamwork and cooperation; use prototypes early
 on so that customers’ expectations are clarified.

What is software ‘quality’?
Quality software is reasonably bug-free, delivered on time and
within budget, meets requirements and/or expectations, and is
maintainable. However, quality is obviously a subjective term.
It will depend on who the ‘customer’ is and their overall
influence in the scheme of things. A wide-angle view of the
‘customers’ of a software development project might include
end-users,customer acceptance testers,customer contract officers,
customer management, the development organization’s
management/accountants/testers/salespeople, future software
maintenance engineers, stockholders, magazine columnists, etc.
Each type of ‘customer’ will have their own slant on ‘quality’
- the accounting department might define quality in terms of
profits while an end-user might define quality as user-friendly
and bug-free

What is ‘good code’?
‘Good code’ is code that works, is bug free, and is readable and
 maintainable. Some organizations have coding ’standards’ that
 all developers are supposed to adhere to, but everyone has
 different ideas about what’s best, or what is too many or too
 few rules. There are also various theories and metrics, such as
 McCabe Complexity metrics.It should be kept in mind that excessive
 use of standards and rules can stifle productivity and creativity.
 ’Peer reviews’, ‘buddy checks’ code analysis tools, etc. can be
 used to check for problems and enforce standards.

For C and C++ coding, here are some typical ideas to consider
in setting rules/standards; these may or may not apply to a
particular situation:
•minimize or eliminate use of global variables.
•use descriptive function and method names - use both upper and
 lower case,avoid abbreviations,use as many characters as necessary
 to be adequately descriptive (use of more than 20 characters is
 not out of line); be consistent in naming conventions.
•use descriptive variable names - use both upper and lower case,
 avoid abbreviations, use as many characters as necessary to be
 adequately descriptive (use of more than 20 characters is not out
 of line); be consistent in naming conventions.
•Function and method sizes should be minimized;less than 100 lines
 of code is good, less than 50 lines is preferable.
•Function descriptions should be clearly spelled out in comments
 preceding a function’s code.
•Organize code for readability.
•Use white space generously - vertically and horizontally
•Each line of code should contain 70 characters max.
•One code statement per line.
•Coding style should be consistent through out a program (e.g.,
 use of brackets, indentations, naming conventions, etc.)
•In adding comments, err on the side of too many rather than too
 few comments; a common rule of thumb is that there should be at
 least as many lines of comments (including header blocks) as
 lines of code.
•No matter how small, an application should include documentation
 of the overall program function and flow (even a few paragraphs
 is better than nothing);or if possible a separate flow chart and
 detailed program documentation.
•Make extensive use of error handling procedures and status and
 error logging.
•For C++, to minimize complexity and increase maintainability,
 avoid too many levels of inheritance in class hierarchies
 (relative to the size and complexity of the application).
 Minimize use of multiple inheritance, and minimize use of
 operator overloading (note that the Java programming language
 eliminates multiple inheritance and operator overloading.)
•For C++, keep class methods small, less than 50 lines of code
 per method is preferable.
•For C++, make liberal use of exception handlers

What is ‘good design’?
‘Design’ could refer to many things, but often refers to
‘functional design’ or ‘internal design’.Good internal design
 is indicated by software code whose overall structure is clear,
 understandable, easily modifiable, and maintainable; is robust
 with sufficient error handling and status logging capability;
 and works correctly when implemented. Good functional design is
 indicated by an application whose functionality can be traced
 back to customer and end-user requirements. For programs that
 have a user interface,it’s often a good idea to assume that the
 end user will have little computer knowledge and may not read a
 user manual or even the on-line help; some common rules-of-thumb
 include:
•the program should act in a way that least surprises the user
•it should always be evident to the user what can be done next
 and how to exit
•the program shouldn’t let the users do something stupid without
 warning them.

What is SEI? CMM? ISO? IEEE? ANSI? Will it help?
•SEI = ‘Software Engineering Institute’ at Carnegie-Mellon
 University; initiated by the U.S. Defense Department to help
 improve software development processes.
•CMM = ‘Capability Maturity Model’, developed by the SEI.It’s
 a model of 5 levels of organizational ‘maturity’ that determine
 effectiveness in delivering quality software. It is geared to
 large organizations such as large U.S. Defense Department
 contractors. However, many of the QA processes involved are
 appropriate to any organization, and if reasonably applied can
 be helpful.Organizations can receive CMM ratings by undergoing
 assessments by qualified auditors.
 Level 1 - characterized by chaos,periodic panics,and heroic
 efforts required by individuals to successfully complete
 projects.Few if any processes in place; successes may not be
 repeatable.

 Level 2 - software project tracking, requirements management,
 realistic planning, and configuration management processes are
 in place; successful practices can be repeated.

 Level 3 - standard software development and maintenance
 processes are integrated throughout an organization; a
 Software Engineering Process Group is is in place to oversee
 software processes, and training programs are used to
 ensure understanding and compliance.

 Level 4 - metrics are used to track productivity, processes,
 and products.  Project performance is predictable,and quality
 is consistently high.

 Level 5 - the focus is on continouous process improvement.
 The impact of new processes and technologies can be predicted
 and effectively implemented when required.
 Perspective on CMM ratings: During 1997-2001,1018 organizations
 were assessed.  Of those, 27% were rated at Level 1, 39% at 2,
 23% at 3, 6% at 4, and  5% at 5.  (For ratings during the period
 1992-96, 62% were at Level 1, 23% at 2, 13% at 3, 2% at 4, and
 0.4% at 5.)  The median size of organizations was 100 software
 engineering/maintenance personnel; 32% of organizations were
 U.S. federal contractors or agencies.  For those rated at
 Level 1, the most problematical key process area was in
 Software Quality Assurance.

•ISO = ‘International Organization for Standardization’ - The ISO
 9001:2000 standard (which replaces the previous standard of 1994)
 concerns quality systems that are assessed by outside auditors,
 and it applies to many kinds of production and manufacturing
 organizations,not just software.It covers documentation,design,
 development,production,testing,installation,servicing,and other
 processes.The full set of standards consists of: (a) Q9001-2000 -
 Quality Management Systems Requirements; (b)Q9000-2000 - Quality
 Management Systems: Fundamentals and Vocabulary; (c)Q9004-2000 -
 Quality Management Systems: Guidelines for Performance Improvements.
 To be ISO 9001 certified, a third-party auditor assesses an
 organization,and certification is typically good for about 3 years,
 after which a complete reassessment is required. Note that ISO
 certification does not necessarily indicate quality products - it
 indicates only that documented processes are followed.
 
•IEEE = ‘Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ - among
 other things, creates standards such as ‘IEEE Standard for Software
 Test Documentation’ (IEEE/ANSI Standard 829), ‘IEEE Standard of
 Software Unit Testing (IEEE/ANSI Standard 1008),’IEEE Standard for
 Software Quality Assurance Plans’ (IEEE/ANSI Standard 730),and
 others.
•ANSI = ‘American National Standards Institute’,the primary
 industrial standards body in the U.S.; publishes some software
 -related standards in conjunction with the IEEE and ASQ (American
 Society for Quality).
•Other software development process assessment methods besides CMM
 and ISO 9000 include SPICE, Trillium, Tick IT and Bootstrap.

What is the ’software life cycle’?
The life cycle begins when an application is first conceived and
ends when it is no longer in use. It includes aspects such as
initial concept,requirements analysis,functional design,internal
design, documentation planning, test planning, coding, document
preparation,integration,testing,maintenance,updates, retesting,
phase-out, and other aspects.

Will automated testing tools make testing easier?
•Possibly. For small projects, the time needed to learn and
 implement them may not be worth it. For larger projects, or
 on-going long-term projects they can be valuable.
•A common type of automated tool is the ‘record/playback’ type.
 For example, a tester could click through all combinations of
 menu choices,dialog box choices,buttons,etc.in an application
 GUI and have them ‘recorded’ and the results logged by a tool.
 The ‘recording’ is typically in the form of text based on a
 scripting language that is interpretable by the testing tool.
 If new buttons are added,or some underlying code in the
 application is changed, etc.the application can then be retested
 by just ‘playing back’ the ‘recorded’ actions, and comparing the
 logging results to check effects of the changes.The problem with
 such tools is that if there are continual changes to the system
 being tested,the ‘recordings’may have to be changed so much that
 it becomes very time-consuming to continuously update the scripts.
 Additionally,interpretation of results (screens, data, logs, etc.)
 can be a difficult task.Note that there are record/playback tools
 for text-based interfaces also, and for all types of platforms.
•Other automated tools can include:
•code analyzers - monitor code complexity, adherence to
 standards, etc.
•coverage analyzers - these tools check which parts of the code
 have been exercised by a test, and may be oriented to code
 statement coverage,condition coverage, path coverage, etc. 
•memory analyzers - such as bounds-checkers and leak detectors.
•load/performance test tools - for testing client/server and web
 applications under various load levels.
•web test tools - to check that links are valid, HTML code usage
 is correct, client-side and server-side programs work, a web
 site’s interactions are secure.                                         
•other tools - for test case management, documentation management,
 bug reporting, and configuration management.