Page - 204 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

204 K. van Dam able to translate what an end-user wants from the software and who’s capable of telling if the software is actually serving its purpose. And even though computers mighttakeovera lotofworkinthesoftwaredevelopmentindustry,I thinktherewill stillbealotofworktobedonebyhumanbeings,especiallywhenitcomestoquality assurance and software testing. However, it will most probably be a completely different jobcomparedto the job today. 5 Conclusion:This Is theFuture To conclude things.During the last few decades the world of a SoftwareTester has changeddramatically. Lookingat the history of software testing and developments in the work field today, I don’t expect the upcoming20 years will be any different. Just like many software testers today can’t even imagine what they were thinking back in 1998, I believe that in 2038 people will have a hard time imagining what software testers are doing today. Things like Artificial Intelligence will change the softwaredevelopment industrycompletely.And it is expectedAI will, in time,be a part of about every piece of software. We will find ways to have software adapting itself to the world around it. The software can change according to the needs of people using it and it might even become able to test itself and fix possible bugs it detects in its own lines of code. However, we will still be needing people to act as a quality conscience. People who can make sure software being developed is meetingtherequirementsofhumanbeingsusingthesoftware.Humanbeingswhose behaviour will most probably remain a mystery to even the most intelligent AI. It mightevenbe thesoftware testers, orwhateverwewill call themin the future,who couldonedaypreventAIfrombecomingtoointelligent(Skynet,anyone?).Butwhat does all this mean for current day software testers? What should we be focussing on?Forwhat thingsshouldwe bepreparingourselves? First off, we should keep investing in test automation. It can only be expected test automation is something that will stay and it will keep improving itself until eventually test automation frameworks will actually be able to do (some) testing insteadof justcheckingsomepre-programmedtest.But,moreimportantlyIbelieve we should keep investing in communication and collaboration. It’s incredibly difficult to get a good understanding of what an actual end-user of a piece of software wants and needs. And it might be just as difficult to make sure everyone involvedwith creating that softwareshares the sameunderstandingofwhat it is the software should be doing to meet the requirements from this end-user. Even today software testers should already act as a quality conscience and make sure software is meeting the requirements.This means the tester is already a linking pin between business and IT today, and will be this linking pin even more in the (near) future. Software testers today might consider broadening their expertise and start looking moreatnon-functionalrequirementslikeperformanceandsecurity.Thesethingsare already really important todaybut will be evenmore important in the (near) future. We don’t want our current-day laptop to be hacked, nor do we want it to fail at