From the Mailbox(Elisabeth Hendrickson:-) What’s the Definition of Testing?

From the Mailbox: What's the Definition of Testing?

The good thing about the post is, it is not in the form of a debate ;), peoples are commenting in order to express there view not to challenge any other's view.

If this has to serve why do we test? then the first and foremost answer for both of these will be

• In his 1979 book The Art of Software Testing, Glenford Myers said, "Testing is the process of executing a program with the intent of finding errors."

• Kaner, Falk and Nguyen agreed in their 1999 book, Testing Computer Software (2nd Ed): "The purpose of testing a program is to find problems in it."

Is this the only thing we do? find bugs..
so let it be more generic
as James Bach' told us

"Testing: questioning a product in order to evaluate it (Bach version);

--  Regards,  Mubbashir