Chapter 9. Compatibility Testing

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Compatibility Testing Overview

• Platform and Application Versions

• Standards and Guidelines

• Data Sharing Compatibility

In Chapter 8, "Configuration Testing," you learned about hardware configuration testing and how to assure that software works properly with the hardware it was designed to run on and connect with. This chapter deals with a similar area of interaction testingchecking that your software operates correctly with other software.

Testing whether one program plays well with others has become increasingly important as consumers demand the ability to share data among programs of different types and from different vendors and take advantage of the ability to run multiple programs at once.

It used to be that a program could be developed as a standalone application. It would be run in a known, understood, benign environment, isolated from anything that could corrupt it. Today, that program likely needs to import and export data to other programs, run with different operating systems and Web browsers, and interoperate with other software being run simultaneously on the same hardware. The job of software compatibility testing is to make sure that this interaction works as users would expect.

The highlights of this chapter include

• What it means for software to be compatible

• How standards define compatibility

• What platforms are and what they mean for compatibility

• Why being able to transfer data among software applications is the key to compatibility