Which is better software testing or software development

However, people are misconceptualized on the importance of software testing while comparing it with software development. The truth is, software testing has equal and even more opportunities than software development, and so, the demand for testers is high.

There has always been a clash between the two prevalent roads in software science — software development and software testing.

People are often left confused while selecting either of them for their career. The reason; there are many misconceptions based on both these career options that over weigh one another. Generally, software testing is overlooked as compared to software development. Many college dropouts and freshers consider it as an unworthy job and do not value it as the job of a software developer. Well, this confusion would not last long if you get to know that software testing is just another world if mastered.

Software testing involves analyzing the software in terms of its industry standards, user satisfaction level, and bugs. The product is not approved as usable or to be sold unless it passes all the tests conducted by the tester.

Developer puts their efforts to make the product, while a software tester has to verify it for use. Hence testing is a more responsible job.

While the development of software requires a firm grip on coding skills, software testing is a field that demands creativity and the ability to think like a user. The present world owes to agility, and the work needs to be automated. With changing trends, development of software would take different forms. Of course, there has to be the right standard approach — whether it is based on agile methodology or traditional.

Whether to go for traditional development method or switch over to agile, for software companies, this has always been the dilemma. This blog carries the idea about determining the principles pertaining to both these development methods, in all aspects such as features, advantages, disadvantages, and of course the reasons why has agile methodology been adopted far and wide and is preferred by many over traditional method.

Traditional software development method refers to the waterfall method, V-model development, etc. All this while, QC is performed to be sure if the right product is developed. Traditional testing has always been a major role player in the delivery of quality products. The requirement is divided into smaller ones and assigned to individual developers based on their specialization.

There is no particular time frame to govern the process. Once the requirements are well understood the process begins, which is not conducted in a specific pace.

The reporting time and product delivery may take longer. Agile software development involves understanding the client requirement and then breaking the development process into various sprints. A sprint is a short period of time taken by the Scrum team to complete a fixed amount of tasks. The completion of every Sprint is followed by reporting.

Even a complex project is simplified for the development of quality product on time, which is depicted by the Burndown Chart. A Burndown chart plays a crucial role in agile development process, by illustrating the pace at which the development team works by plotting user stories against the time elapsed. As the process on, the product delivery gets much faster.

The faster is the delivery, the quicker is received the feedback from the client. The changes are incorporated much faster. The right product is released quicker, following the agile approach.

As the issues keep coming up and get resolved then and there, to lead to new iterations, the documentation becomes difficult to carry on. It often stays limited, and so it becomes difficult to communicate the other teams about how did it go. They'd also write stress tests, performance tests, check resource consumption, correctness, and so on.

SDEs write code that ships to the customer, or that runs in services used by or on behalf of the customer. SDET code is written as 'happy case' code.

If it hits unexpected conditions like out of memory , you just re-run it. SDE code, on the other hand, is often expected to run indefinitely without restart, to survive unexpected problems, and to behave in a proscribed way in each circumstance.

Yeah, I don't know either. But I'd tend to think writing the actual driver. Which of these is harder? Developers generally go deep in one area. Everything should work perfectly when moved to production. All this expectation often comes with less involvement.

Whether what has been developed is even testable. Or how they will complete the testing. Or how much time they need which can be difficult to quantify anyway. When things do go wrong in production, the tester is often blamed. It is more widely accepted that the whole team owns product quality, not just the tester.

Testers should no longer be treated like second class citizens in most forward thinking organisations. If you are still treated like one, get the perceptions changed. The demand for high quality test professionals is at an all time high.

Again, this reason is less true where developer and tester are seen as equal or close to it, at least. I have learnt to award myself Gold Stars, rather than wait for someone else to do so thanks in part to this great book — The Success Principles.

But of course, it never hurts to get recognition for a job well done. This can be hard to come by for testers. Maybe this is a bad thing, maybe not, you can decide. The general ratio of developers to testers in most Agile teams seems to be Perhaps this is a reasonable ratio, but it depends on the expectations placed on the tester.

Also to write every type of test unit, integration, e2e. And get all those tests automated. And conduct performance testing. And write up all the test results and reporting.

Being outnumbered naturally means that testing has less of a voice. So there you have it, its official, testing is harder than development! But I think with the points I have outlined above, there is at least some justification to say that. What do you think? Please leave you comments below, I would love to hear from you! Especially if you are a developer, and think I am ludicrous!

James Willett. Oct 27, 10 min read. Without further ado, here are the 8 reasons why testing is harder than development: Reason 1: You need a broader set of skills So of course you have the core set of traditional tester skills. Reason 2: You need to have a multiple personality disorder OK, perhaps I am exaggerating here a touch…. This is a lot of different caps. You better get used to wearing them all.

Reason 5: Recruitment is a nightmare Have you or your organisation had to recruit anyone in testing recently? Or how much time they need which can be difficult to quantify anyway When things do go wrong in production, the tester is often blamed. Reason 7: Less credit and appreciation Again, this reason is less true where developer and tester are seen as equal or close to it, at least.

Reason 8: You are outnumbered Maybe this is a bad thing, maybe not, you can decide. Read more about Articles. Book Review - Make it Stick.