System testing

  I'm very cleary on system testing,so I reprint what has been published elsewhere in order to share with anybody.

  System testing is both the most misunderstood and most difficult testing process.System testing is not a process of testing the functions of the complete system or program,because this would be redundant with the process of function testing.System testing has a particular propose:to compare the system or program to its original objectives.Given this propose,two implications are:

1.System testing is not limited to "systems".If the product is a program,system testing is the process of attemptiong to demonstrate how the program does not meet its objectives.

2.System testing,by definition,is impossible if the project has not produced a written set of measurable objectives for its product.

  In looking for discrepancies between the program and its objectives, much of the focus is on translation errors made during the process of designing the external specification.This makes the system test a vital test process,because in terms of the product of the number of errors made and the severity of those errors,this step in the development cycle is usually the most errorprone step.It also implies that,unlike the function test,the external specification cannot be used as the basis for deriving the system test cases,since this would subvert the purpose of the system test.On the other hand,the objectives document cannot be used by itself,to formulate test cases,since it does not,by definition,contain precise descriptions of the program's external interfaces.This dilemma is soved by using the program's user documentation or publications.System test cases are designed by analyzing the objectives and then formulated by analyzing the user documentation.  This has the useful side effect of not only comparing the program to its objectives,but also comparing the program to the user documentation and comparing the user documentation to the objectives.

  The reason that system testing is the most difficult testing process is that that comparing the ptogram to its objectives,is the central propose of the system test,but there are no known test-case-design methodologies.The reason for this is that objectives state what a program shold do,and how well the program should do it,but do not state the representation of the program's functions.

  Because of the absence of a methodology,system testing requires a substantial amount of creativity;in fact,the design of good system test cases required to design the system or program.