ARTE OU PRÁTICA EM TESTE DE SOFTWARE?

Abstract

There is an increasing concern in the industry on improving product and service quality, and the software sector is aware of that. Governmental agencies and private organizations develop quality standards reflecting best practices (state of the practice) and scientific findings (state of the art) due to the increasing demand for systems aligned to project requirements and customer needs; software testing, the central topic of the present article, is one of the areas targeted for standardization (be it in the process itself or in managerial issues). Here we contrast the literature on software testing with actual practices – as perceived by experts – of a major cluster of software companies in Southern Brazil. In 2003, 14 out of the 20 companies constituting the cluster were investigated under a case study approach supported by in-depth interviews with some of the companies’ software testing professionals, and findings suggest that there is a correlation between a company’s time in the market and the adherence of its software testing procedures to the theoretical exhortations. Important topics are raised concerning the Brazilian software industry, as well as about the priority that should be given to the art or to the practice in the field.