A software development team has a shared goal of getting their products to market. But before apps are made accessible to the public, companies must be assured that their products have quality code implemented.
Reviewing code is a necessary step in software development, but it is often overlooked by companies on a tight deadline because testing code is time-consuming. There are various methods of ensuring code quality. Find out which will work best for your team.
Code Quality Assurance Methods
Regular Code Reviews
Small companies often perform regular code reviews because this method is less costly and benefits everyone working on the project. Regular code reviews are collaborative, usually done in meetings amongst peers and management. Businesses can also perform code reviews by using tools that analyze code in search of flaws.
With regular code reviews, companies have a more comprehensive view of the development process. No project manager wants to reach the ending phases of development, only to discover coding errors that need correction. If things are going in the wrong direction, workers can be re-assigned to tasks that will prevent further issues.
Outsourced workers are prime candidates for testing jobs. For an outsourced team, the quality of their work can be assessed at various points of development through code reviews. These code reviews often have positive results and give managers incentive to outsource software development in the future.
Functional Testing
Customers expect an app to hold up to its description of features. This testing method fulfills that promise. Functional testing is also known as The Black Box Method, used to measure coding quality based on how well each set of features functions within the application.
Functional testing looks beyond detailed coding knowledge and focuses on what happens when users take action on the front end of the app. With functional testing, you see through the eyes of the customer, who is less concerned with code and more interested in the overall performance of the product.
Similar to the concept of functional testing would be user acceptance testing. User acceptance testing is a simpler testing method that allows developers to interact with software as the customer to determine how satisfied a user would be while using an application once the product is available on the app market.
Unit Testing
Unit testing is typically performed during large projects due to the amount of time it takes to execute the test properly, but the benefits of unit testing far outweigh the potential time delays. When unit testing, the developer separates every line of code and then analyzes it for errors.
This method of testing ensures the proper functioning of the software. By testing each line of code, developers can quickly find bugs that may have corrupted the software. While the process of unit testing ensures code quality, it also trains developers to become more analytical as they create code.
Two of the most common unit tests are statement coverage and pass coverage. Statement coverage analyzes every single line of code, and pass coverage is the most comprehensive form of testing. Pass coverage goes beyond analyzing each line of code by executing a test case as well confirming the functionality of each coding line.
Regression Testing
Regression testing is a method of testing code quality by seeing how each new code affects the software. Modifying programs by adding code is meant to improve an application, but it can also cause interference. Regression testing is done after any coding modifications to make sure there are no flaws that have been created within the system.
Outsourcing software development reduces the time it takes to release your product on the app market, but you don’t want your app to feature faulty code because small details were overlooked without testing.
Code Quality requires tests and review periods during development. Analyzing code during every development phase is the only way your company and the outsourced team can guarantee customer satisfaction and a secure application.
