It is of common knowledge that software testing is a part of the software development life cycle. Both software construction and testing are intended to creating qualitative product.
Although the same application is dealt with during the development and testing processes, each process must be performed in separate environment. It is essential to dissociate testing environment from the developing environment.
If this were not the case accidental changes of the application done during mobile testing, desktop testing or web site testing or other missteps may remain unnoticed. Their correction in the late phases of the development will demand much expenditures and efforts. The worst damage may be caused to a software product by such lapses in production.
Unfortunately some managers decide not to create separate test environment and this way reduce the cost of the project. Such decision is risk bearing.
The Most Probable Difficulties of Performing Software Testing in Development Environment Are:
1. Wasted Efforts and Resources
A software engineer can make corrections or amendments in the application code or create some new features. At the same time testers may be checking the application and adding errors in the bugtracker.
As a result some reported errors will be impossible to reproduce and the areas of the application related to the performed changes will remain untested. So, the work of the testers and the developers will be useless.
2. Problems with Works Organization for Both Developers and Testers
A development team and a software testing company need to work with an application environment. If there is no separate application environment for testing, it is hard to manage the development and the testing processes.
For instance, the software engineers may need to perform some amendments to the system and the testers need the system to be stable at this time in order to finish running some tests.
3. Conflict of Activities
A development team and a software testing company may need to adjust the environment to their specific purposes. The adjustments that are necessary for one party may prevent the other from work.
For instance, a software testing company may need to alter the environment in order to execute some types of testing. It will be impossible for software engineers to fix errors or implement new features when the environment is changed in such way.
So, it is better to be on the safe side and create testing environment for a web site testing, desktop testing or mobile application testing despite on the expenses. Corrections of the oversights at the end of the development life cycle or after release costs much more. But it is acceptable to create circumscribed test environment if the project budget is very limited.
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