What is software testing? And why is it so hard?

The author sheds some light on why testing today´s software products is so challenging, and he identifies several solid approaches that all testers should be able to thoughtfully apply. The effective tester has a rich toolkit of fundamental testing techniques, understands how the product will be used in its operating environment, and has a nose for where subtle bugs might lurk in the product and a bag of tricks for flushing them out. The methods described can help testers provide a sensible answer to the question of what they really mean when they say they have finished testing a software system