Software Development Education Needs—Where Are the Testers?
Today, software is the basis for just about every business and institution out there. Unfortunately, as the number of software development jobs grows at twice the national average, the number of students being educated falls short.
According to an infographic from code.org, by 2020 there will be one million more computer programming jobs than students. And although it is among one of the highest paying career fields, less than 2.4 percent of college students will graduate with a degree in computer science. Code.org adds that nine out of ten schools don’t even offer programming classes.
The president has addressed this imbalance—stressing the need to focus on tech education in his State of the Union address. There have been several high schools and after-school programs that have recognized the need and are joining the tech movement.
While the movement is underway, Ole Lensmar of NetworkWorld says there is an important piece missing from this initiative—testing:
If anything is missing from this initiative, in my opinion, it is a focus on the sister discipline of software testing. It’s an area that is often underrated by some organizations, that is, until they try to use a buggy tool or an unstable API. If we are going to rely so heavily on software as the infrastructure for the finance, medical, government, and education sectors, it’s important that we build quality software those industries can rely on.
I would prefer that my doctor have bug-free access to my medical records and that my banking transactions get posted accurately. And, with all due respect to programmers, I like to think that those applications are thoroughly inspected by professional testers before they hit production.
Medical records and bank transactions are only a few of the ways we use software to access our private data. This is why testing is so essential across all software verticals. Lensmar adds that while test automation is great, nothing can replace true, in-the-wild testing:
Software testing has been on a path toward convergence with programming for some time, especially when it comes to test automation. At the same time, many vendors have tried to create tools that allow non-programmers to exercise code in ways they would not know how to do by themselves. It’s surprising how slowly this discipline has evolved over the last two decades—often because it has all the overhead of code maintenance without any associated direct revenue.
And yet, the benefits of having well-maintained automated tests in a continuous integration environment can’t be understated. At the same time, software testers provide much-needed input and perspective from exploratory testing and user acceptance testing. In my opinion, nothing can replace the 'human perspective' as part of the quality assurance cycle.
The human perspective is an essential part of the QA cycle. Testing real world human scenarios cannot be replicated with a tool or inside the lab; we need educated testers in-the-wild for that.
