Summary

This chapter introduced you to the basics of compatibility testing. In reality, an entire book could be written on the subject, and a single chapter doesn't do the topic justice. Every platform and every application is unique, and the compatibility issues on one system can be totally different than on another.

As a new software tester, you may be assigned a task of compatibility testing your software. That may seem strange, given that it's potentially such a large and complex task, but you'll likely be assigned just a piece of the entire job. If your project is a new operating system, you may be asked to compatibility test just word processors or graphics programs. If your project is an applications program, you may be asked to compatibility test it on several different platforms.

Each is a manageable task that you can easily handle if you approach your testing with these three things in mind:

• Equivalence partition all the possible choices of compatible software into a manageable set. Of course, your project manager should agree with your list and understand the risk involved in not testing everything.

• Research the high-level and low-level standards and guidelines that might apply to your software. Use these as extensions of your product's specification.

• Test the different ways that data can flow between the software programs you're testing. This data exchange is what makes one program compatible with another.