Software and Testing

Abstract

For a computer system to work correctly, both the hardware and the software must be right. Unfortunately, it is impossible to guarantee that both parts will be correct: the hardware may be at fault, or the software. Certainly the software can be in error: a computer does exactly what it is told and not necessarily what you thought you told it to do. The hardware may have been designed incorrectly, an error may have occurred during construction, or one of the components may be damaged. Thus when a system is first configured and it does not work (which happens all too often), is it the software that is wrong, or is the hardware faulty?