What is the difference between debugging and testing?

Posted by persepolis on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by persepolis
Published on 2011-05-25T13:09:05Z Indexed on 2012/12/01 17:16 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 261

Filed under:

testing

|

debugging

Introduction To Software Testing (Ammann & Offutt) mentions on p.32 a 5-level testing maturity model:

Level 0 There’s no difference between testing and debugging.

Level 1 The purpose of testing is to show that the software works.

Level 2 The purpose of testing is to show that the software doesn’t work.

Level 3 The purpose of testing is not to prove anything specific, but to reduce the risk of using the software.

Level 4 Testing is a mental discipline that helps all IT professionals develop higher quality software.

Although they don't go into much further detail. What are the differences between debugging and testing?

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about testing

Automated unit testing, integration testing or acceptance testing

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
TDD and unit testing seems to be the big rave at the moment. But it is really that useful compared to other forms of automated testing? Intuitively I would guess that automated integration testing is way more useful than unit testing. In my experience the most bugs seems to be in the interaction… >>> More
Modifying a HTML page to fix several "bugs" add a function to next/previous on a option dropdown

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
SOF, I've got a few problems plaguing me at the moment and am wondering if anyone could assist me with them. I'm trying to get Next Class | Previous Class to act as buttons so that when Next Class is clicked it will go to the next item in the dropdown list and for previous it would go to back one… >>> More
Automation testing tool for Regression testing of desktop application

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi I am working on a desktop application which uses Infragistic grids. We need to automate the regression tests for same. QTP alone does not support this, we need to buy new plug in for same which my company is not very much interested in. Do we have any open source tool for automating regression… >>> More
Oracle Functional Testing Suite Advanced Pack for Oracle EBS Now Available

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
There’s new news about automated testing of E-Business Suite using the Oracle Application Testing Suite, a.k.a, “OATS”. E-Business Suite Development is pleased to announce the availability of the new Oracle Functional Testing Suite Advanced Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite. The new pack, available… >>> More
Do You Know How OUM defines the four, basic types of business system testing performed on a project? Why not test your knowledge?

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
Testing is perhaps the most important process in the Oracle® Unified Method (OUM). That makes it all the more important for practitioners to have a common understanding of the various types of functional testing referenced in the method, and to use the proper terminology when communicating with each… >>> More

Related posts about debugging

I need help debugging apache with gdb (no debugging symbols found)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm trying to debug a segfault in PHP/Apache running on RHEL4. This is a production server, so I'm trying to install a separate copy of apache and php, and run apache through gdb. When I load httpd through gdb and then do run -X, I get the error (no debugging symbols found)...Error while reading… >>> More
debugging C++ when compared to debugging C

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
HI, I am normally a C programmer. I do regularly debug C programs on unix environment using tools like gdb,dbx. i have never done debugging of big applications of C++. Is that much different from how we debug in C. theoretically i am quite good in C++ but have never got a chance to debug C++ programs… >>> More
How to fix Ogre3d segfault with std::_Rb_tree_insert_and_rebalance ?

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
Hello all. I'm working on a 3d music visualizer using Ogre3d, basically it's a spectrum analizer, a lot like the old xmms plugin: (http)://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6NKBiwYN24 It works well, the bars are drawn and updated, there are no framerate issues, but it crashes randomly. Sometimes it can run… >>> More
Will logging debugging incur a performance hit if I don't turn debugging on?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
On a Cisco device, I know that enabling debugging can incur a performance hit since debugging has such a high priority on the CPU. I know that to log debugging, you have to set logging up to the debugging level (logging buffered 4096 debugging, for example) and also enable debugging on some feature… >>> More
Debugging unmanaged code while debugging managed code

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, The .NET 3.5 application I am working on consists of bunch of different solutions. Some of these solutions consist of managed code(C#) and others have unmanaged code(C++). Methods written in C# communicate with the ones written in C++. I am trying to trace the dependencies between these various… >>> More