Question about how to become a good software (a website) tester [closed]_问答_开发者

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I am going to look for a job as a software tester (a SDET maybe), especially for website test. I have some vague impr开发者_如何学JAVAession of this area and got a couple of specific questions as below:

Among so many documents, such as functional spec, design spec, which should I pay more attention to? How to view them in a tester's view?
Any good suggestions about writing test spec?
Any attention should be paid to website test?

These are just some questions I got now, I'll update with more shortly.

I'd like to hear your voice very much. Many thanks.

Credentials: I'm an SDET with 5 years of experience, 2 of those years testing web applications.

1- I'd say testerab has a pretty good answer. There is no single document that you can invariably rely upon across companies or even teams within a single company. Pay attention to whichever document has information.

I'd augment that answer with this advice: Don't be surprised if the documentation is insufficient. Strike up strong relationships with people who help define the product (the dev, the business owner, the program manager, etc.). You will nearly always be relying on them for some of your specifications, since it is difficult to cover everything on paper (and, as you gain expertise as a tester, you will learn to see things that others don't notice). Try to write down any "verbal specs" as you hear them, and ideally get any requests for specification clarification in writing or email. Gathering them all in a public document is wise, and may help to uncover if two people have very different ideas about what the spec "ought" to be.

2- Testerab has a good answer to this question, also, here: How Do You Keep Automated Tests in Synch With Test Plans

"1) Who reads it? 2) Who should probably read it, but currently you suspect they don't bother? (Do you know why they don't bother?) 3) What information do they need to get from it? Does it give them that info? 4) How do you currently present that information? Does that work for your readers/non-readers? 5) What sort of feedback do you need to get from the readers of your test plan? 6) Do you have any regulatory requirements that you need to satisfy with your test planning? "

Test plans, like product specs, will vary greatly depending on the needs of your group. If you are in an Agile group you may spend very little time on your test plan, doing little more than outlining the areas you need to cover - or you might not even have a test plan at all, but just a conversation with the team about what will be sufficient testing for everyone to feel confident about making decisions about the product. Other companies will have very specific guidelines you will need to follow.

Cem Kaner's classic book "Testing Computer Software" is slightly outdated, but still a good place to start and discusses test planning. I'd recommend you buy a copy quite strongly, unless someone can recommend something as authoritative that is more current. Last I heard, this was still the software testing book.

3- I'm having a little trouble understanding this question, but will do my best. Do you mean, what specifically will you need to know to test websites? First, what do you mean by websites? Do you mean web applications? If so, you will probably need to understand server / client architecture, web services, databases and basic SQL, at least rudimentary security testing, integration testing, functional testing, and will benefit from an understanding or specialization in performance testing, load testing, more security testing, and familiarity with web GUI testing with Selenium or Watir.

Some helpful things for us to know to help you get started:

How much experience do you have, both as a developer and as a tester? If you are just getting started in your career, what is your educational background?
How much experience do you have working with web applications, and in what roles (dev, test, PM, etc.)?

And, you might want to try asking some of these questions over at http://www.softwaretestingclub.com - this is a site for software testers to build community. You will get a lot of good advice and support there, so long as you are active in the community, and many of the most influential software test writers hang out there. If you do stop by there, feel free to look me up!

Hope this helps!

Edit: Added some info to answer q. #2 and to mention Cem Kaner's book.

I'm a developer with 2 years .NET experience and 1.5 years previous testing experience and an ISTQB/ISEB Foundation qualification.

To answer your questions:

1: A test manager will (typically) have a test plan and awareness of the specification documents to be tested against. Using what a developer is using is a good start. If the development methodology is agile this will probably be "user story".
A good way to look at the documents is to go through and look at where individual elements of functionality are specified and create steps to exercise them (see some of the functional techniques below).

2: What do you mean by "test spec"? You will need to prioritise the areas of the application that need testing and understand the coverage needed. A "Test case spec". (or test script) will fit into higher level documents (like Test Plans, and Test Strategies) can be efficiently and effectively written using some Black box (Functional) techniques including:
Equivalence Partitioning,
Boundary Value Analysis,
Decision Tables,
State Transition analysis,
Use Case analysis (which could be based on a user story)
to come up with scripts that contain test cases. These techniques can be looked up online.

White box (Structural) testing involves an awareness of the code and includes:
Statement Coverage,
Decision coverage

If you're are looking at a website, this may involve JavaScript; QUnit is a testing framework for automating JavaScript testing and would be useful to research. NUnit is a commonly used test framework for .NET applications (including web applications) - NUnit was ported from its Java equivanlent JUnit and has been expanded (most probably owing to the popularity of .NET).

3: I don't understand what you mean by this? A web application will need to be tested in many different ways, and contains server and client functionality that will be tested using different techniques and the testing needs will need to be analysed. It will depend on the project.

As mentioned in other answers there are also other types of testing: Unit - modular testing of functions at the lowest possible levels
Integration - testing functionality between different functional areas
Regression - testing to ensure that previously working functionality hasn't been broken by changes
System testing (Functional) - ensuring that the code/system under test is working as specified
System testing (Non-functional) - ensuring that aspects of the system that may not be specified are appropriate e.g. performance, load, stress, interoperability, maintainability, reliability, portability, usability
Acceptance (something called User Acceptance Testing or UAT) - ensuring that the system under test is fit for use

As mentioned in other answers, you will be retesting existing defects and inclusion of these to your test scripts is a good idea.

Hopefully this answer has given you a lot of food for thought and a good base for research. Testing qualifications or a role as a Junior Tester in an established team to build your understanding and experience could prove to be very useful.

"Among so many documents, such as functional spec, design spec, which should I pay more attention to? How to view them in a tester's view?"

Being able to extract useful information from many different sources of documentation is a critical skill for a tester, so you're right to identify that as an area you need to look at. The documents you need to look at will vary from project to project, and from company to company, so there isn't one good answer about what document you need to look at - but having good specification analysis skills will mean you'll be able to cope with whatever you're given.

For that, I'd strongly recommend this BBST course on specification based testing - it will show you how to analyse specifications, applying the Satisfice Heuristic Test Strategy model. That should also help you with your second question about writing a test spec.

http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST/BBSTSpecificationTesting.html

I'd recommend the BBST courses in general - the course materials are all available freely online, at the website above.

If you're really serious about testing, you should also consider taking the online course from the Association of Software Testing. The Foundations course is free to members, and you'll get the opportunity to practice your skills online, gain really valuable feedback on how you present yourself and your ideas, and you'll also meet a lot of outstanding testers, both as fellow pupils and as instructors. It's hard work - but if you're willing to put the effort in you will really get a tremendous amount out of it. Being able to discuss the basics with other people will really help you to get a deeper understanding.

my 50c

If you don't have test specs, or any kind of specs, you can transform your bug reports into test plan.

For each bug report that occurs, create one test item. That way - you'll have list of tests that you can follow when doing regression testing.