Why learn about software testing?

This pondering about the importance of testing was on my Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign page. Here it is for all of you to read!

The world is full of software. It is hard to live a day without using software in some form or another. Some software works on its own (like games), some enable services (like online banks) and some are a crucial part of physical products (like cars or planes). The more critical or complex the software is the better quality it has to be. Companies need great software to differentiate from the competition. Software testing is the key approach to creating this great quality.

The lack of software developers, or coders, is in the news all the time. You have your coding schools, and other such initiatives to get children into coding at a young age. Which is very good, of course, also from the testing point of view. All coding includes some testing. What software testing professionals always notice, however, is that software testing is more than the testing done by the developer. Even a developer that knows her testing still makes mistakes, creating defects. And there are so many types of defects from performance problems to functionality failures. Usually, the developer doesn’t have time for enough testing to find these defects. This is human but underlines the need of larger focus on software testing skills. There is a lack of testers, too. Everyone should have testing skills at basic level.  Some will specialize in software testing and become testing professionals, to become really skilled in finding defects. Software testing accounts to about one-third of all software development time and money, depending on what you include in that sum.

The world deserves better software and that requires a good understanding of software testing. In general, we need more software testing awareness and skills. We also do need to bring software testing into the attention of children, who are interested in code. If they get into coding, their better understanding of testing will help them to be better developers. They also might become software testers, adding into the honorable profession of software testers.

For some children, and adults, too, the software testing may be their best, most viable way into the fascinating world of information technology. Not all people have the talent or interest to be great developers, but they can still be very meaningful in the world of IT. Software testing offers also such possibilities. As the testing, agile and DevOps philosophies say, testing is everywhere and done by everybody. Thus customers, users, technical staff, developers, and yes, professional testers need to have solid software testing skills. It all starts with awareness and understanding of software testing.