Software Testing - Principles, Lifecycle, Limitations and Methods

Software testing provides a means to reduce errors, cut maintenance and overall software costs. Various software development and testing methodologies, tools, and techniques have emerged over the last few decades promising to enhance software quality. While it can be argued that there has been some improvement it is apparent that many of the techniques and tools are isolated to a specific lifecycle phase or functional area. One of the major problems within software testing area is how to get a suitable set of cases to test a software system. This set should assure maximum effectiveness with the least possible number of test cases. There are now numerous testing techniques available for generating test cases.