Software Deployment, Testing, User Documentation and Training

Building software is only half the job; getting it into the hands of users in a reliable, understandable form is the other half. This lesson covers testing, which establishes that the software works, and deployment, documentation, and training, which together make the software usable by the people it was built for.

Testing before release

Testing is the systematic process of finding faults in software before users do. No sizeable program is free of defects, so the goal is not to prove that software is perfect but to raise confidence that it is good enough to release. Testing happens at several levels, but two release-stage forms are especially important in the SDLC.

• Alpha testing is carried out inside the developing organization, typically by testers or developers who are not the original