The software testing history probably starts with the invention of the word "BUG". Now this word means a discrepancy between the expected and actual behavior within the working software application. In the middle of the XX century one US team faced a problem with their computer (those were huge back then and partly mechanical). It did not work and they could not find a reason why. After some time of analyzing their workhorse they found a small bug that died between the mechanical parts of the computer and resulted those not to work correctly. The report about the incident was written down into the team diary and the body of the bug was attached there as well. That report they called "bug report". Since then the word BUG is used to describe all the glitches that happens with your programs. Nowadays testing is almost a separate process, a huge set of complex actions separated from the development processes but still directly affecting those. A huge amount of standards, tools, frameworks, approaches and methodologies appeared. All this because of value of a bug. It can vary from 1 cent to the price of thousands of human lifes, whatever the number you will put here. The bug could mean either a wrong color selected for a button on a web page or an accidental launch of a nuclear rocket into the center of New York. And that is the sense of life of the testing department - to decrease possibilities of the worst cases to the lowest amount... and to receive a payment for their job.
Software tester position is now as popular as the software developer. And still it continues to grow in popularity. I still don't know for how long it will exist, for a generation or a couple of generations but for sure its approaches will be changed a lot in the future. This profession is quiet new so basically we are almost neanderthals with a spear fighting against mammoth and there is a long path of improvements in future. But I have to say that these neanderthals now receive rather good salaries all around the globe. Almost the same as software developers or maybe the same as of today. There are some key points that still remains unchanged for software testing and will probably be there forever:
The software testing was always a part of a software development process and its approaches changed a lot with time since the middle of XX century. You probably will hear a lot about waterfall methodology, agile approach, RUP, SCRUM, TDD, BDD, maybe SCRUMBUT. What do you need to know about that? For a job interview process - everything, for actual job - nothing of that. Those are approaches for development processes that are decided by management even before the design stage. And if you are reading this article it is very likely you have nothing to do yet with management. Just learn the definitions of waterfall, SCRUM and TDD, even wiki articles would be more then enough to understand those. And while reading all that try to put yourself as a tester into every stage of the life cycle. I am pretty much sure that you will not see any clean representation of any of those methodologies in life. Especially Scrum. What so special about it? Well all the other methodologies (except RUP) are not owned by any company while Scrum is owned by Scrum Alliance. This company provides Scrum certifications for money. And in order to make money they need to make companies around the world to use Scrum approach and to certify the stuff of the companies that use Scrum. In some cases Scrum approach may be good (mainly for kickstarters) but it is definitely not usable for large companies with many teams involved in the same process. But scrum evangelists will say that it is usable anywhere and it always make everything better. And some companies believe that. And after starting scrum things for all the projects they find out that there are a lot of cases that are not covered and they invent spikes for those creating their own scrumbut methodology which does not bring any use and only makes things worse. So Scrum is like a Deadpool movie - it is as good for you as you are affected by its advertisement. And actually RUP with short cycles (which is spiral waterfall) remains the most widely used approach even many will try to say opposite and pretend that they use Scrum. Still just for extra safety during your interviews do not blame Scrum as I did it here. You may say that it is good in certain cases for a very dedicated not large team with a very good professionals (and don't say that such team actually does not need any methodology to be successful). Anyway, history of the software testing is not something you will encounter often during interview or especially during your work. But knowing that will add some extra points to your intelligence attribute and will allow you to look smarter during technical conversations (which is a priceless skill for you when you become a manager). So what do you need to be a good tester and continue this reading? Many people say that main thing about testing is endurance, computer knowledge, sharp eyes... Nope, the main thing about software testing is the same as for any other profession. And this thing is enjoying your work. Make sure you love it. Make your work your hobby, or vice versa. And it will pay you back with a lot of cookies. Learn it, improve it, teach others and at some point you will notice that you are actually a very successful person.
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