quality assurance

Concept

Quality Assurance

• ensuring that the software has the required levels of quality
• testing
• QA = Validation + Verification

Validation

• are you building the right system?
• are the requirements correct?

Verification

• are you building the system right?
• are the requirements implemented correctly

Code Reviews

• systematic examination of code
• find where improvements can be made
• methods:
  • PR reviews
  • pair programming
  • formal inspection
• pros:
  • verify incomplete features
  • detect code quality violations
• cons:
  • error prone - manul process

Static Analysis

• analysis of code without actually executing it
• identify unused variables, unhandled exceptions, style errors and stats
• linters - clean up code style

Formal Verification

• using mathematical techniques to prove correctness of a program
• prove the absence of errors, whereas testing can only prove the presence of errors
• expensive to administer - only used in safety critical software