White Box Testing vs. Black Box Testing
- Posted by Tim Hsueh on July 7th, 2010 filed in Uncategorized
- Comment now »
In this blog, the White Box Testing and the black box testing are being discussed in detail including the advantages and the disadvantages of each testing and the best time to use each testing.
- White Box Testing
- The letter white in the White Box Testing means that the testers can see what is in the box (program) while doing the test. This means that the testers should have knowledge about the program that they are testing and it is possible that the testers are required to help debugging the program in addition to just test the program.
- The Advantages of the White Box Testing
- One of the advantages of the White Box Testing is that the testers can help debugging the program for the programmers and this can give the programmers extra time to work on something else.
- Another advantage of the White Box Testing is that the testers are going to have fewer questions if they encounter the bugs because they have some knowledge about how the program works. Thus, this will also give programmers extra time.
- The Disadvantages of the White Box Testing
- One of the disadvantages of the White Box Testing is that the testers must have knowledge about the program and it might not be easy to find testers that have the knowledge.
- Another disadvantage of the White Box Testing is that the testers might not be able to find bugs for special cases because they cannot think “Outside the Box”.
- Black Box Testing
- The Black Box Testing is the exact opposite of the White Box Testing, the testers for the Black Box Testing do not have to have the knowledge of the program and that means the testers can be almost anyone.
- The Advantages of the Black Box Testing
- One of the biggest advantages of the black box testing is that the testers can be found easily and they don’t require any training at all. Thus, this advantage can save time and resources for the project.
- Another advantage of the black box testing is that the team can pay very little or even nothing to the testers and this can help the budget of the project.
- The Disadvantages of the Black Box Testing
- One of the disadvantages of the black box testing is that the testers might have a hard time to communicate with the programmers because they do not know how the programmers write the program.
- Another disadvantage of the black box testing is that the testers might just do Ad Hoc Testing (Testing without any plans) and the small bugs are often overlooked with the Ad Hoc Testing.
- So which one to use? White box testing or Black box testing?
- The White Box Testing is best for software that does not require lots of testing but the software might have some technical bugs within the program. The White Box Testing is often used by programmers while they are creating the software, since the programmers are also the testers, the project can save time and budget because these bugs can be easily fixed by the programmers themselves.
- The Black Box Testing is good for software that requires a lot of testing especially the stress testing (Testing to see if the servers can handle all the users that are logging on at the same time) for the servers. Also, the Black Box Testing should be used to test the programs that anyone can use such as computer games.
Leave a Comment