In this Manual testing tutorial, we will begin with the testing principles.

For testing an application, we need to follow some principles to make our product defects free, and that even helps the test engineers to test the software with their effort and time. 

Let us see the 7 diverse testing principles, one by one:

1. Testing shows the presence of defects

The test engineer will run the programme to ensure that it is free of bugs and faults. During testing, we can only determine whether or not the application or software has any flaws. Because the entire test should be traceable to the customer demand, which means to uncover any defects that can cause the product to fail to fulfil the client's needs, the major goal of testing is to determine the number of unknown bugs using various methodologies and testing approaches.

We can cut the level of flaws in any programme by testing it, but it does not indicate the application is defect-free; in fact, when running many types of testing on it, the software may appear to be bug-free. However, if the end-user finds defects that were not discovered during the testing process, the application will be deployed to the production server.

2. Exhaustive Testing is not possible

During the actual testing process, it may appear to be difficult to test all of the modules and their features with effective and ineffective combinations of input data.

As a result, rather than conducting comprehensive testing, which necessitates countless conclusions and the majority of the hard work is in vain. Because the product timelines will not allow us to do such testing scenarios, we can complete these types of variants according to the relevance of the modules.

3. Early Testing

Here early testing means that all the testing activities should start in the early stages of the software development life cycle's requirement analysis stage to identify the defects because if we find the bugs at an early stage, it will be fixed in the initial stage itself, which may cost us very less as compared to those which are identified in the future phase of the testing process.

To perform testing, we will require the requirement specification documents; therefore, if the requirements are defined incorrectly, then it can be fixed directly rather than fixing them in another stage, which could be the development phase.

4. Defect clustering

Defect clustering means that we can detect the amount of issues that are linked to a limited number of modules during the testing process. We have a number of reasons for this, including the fact that the modules could be intricate, the coding component could be difficult, and so on.

These forms of software or applications will adhere to the Pareto Principle, which claims that we can estimate the number of people who will use it. Eighty percent of the complication can be found in only 20% of the modules. We can find the unsure modules using this method, but it has drawbacks if the same tests are run on a regular basis, as the same test will not be able to detect new faults.

5. Pesticide paradox

This principle states that if we repeat the same set of test cases over a period of time, we will not be able to identify new flaws in the programme or application. It is critical to evaluate all test cases on a regular basis in order to overcome these pesticide contradictions. In addition, new and varied tests must be designed for the implementation of several components of the application or programme, which aids in the discovery of further defects.

6. Testing is context-dependent

Testing is a context-dependent principle, which implies that we have numerous fields available in the market, such as e-commerce websites, commercial websites, and so on. Because each application has its own needs, features, and functionality, there is a clear technique to test both commercial and e-commerce websites. We will use numerous types of testing, distinct techniques, methodologies, and many methods to examine this type of application. As a result, testing is dependent on the application's context.

7. Absence of errors fallacy

We can say that the application is 99 percent bug-free once it has been thoroughly tested and no issues have been discovered prior to its release. However, there's a potential that testing the programme alongside inaccurate specifications, identifying defects, and fixing them within a set time frame won't assist because testing is done on the incorrect specification, which doesn't relate to the client's requirements. The lack of error fallacy states that detecting and correcting defects will be ineffective if the application is impracticable and unable to meet the client's needs.