Some testing definitions

Some definitions of key testing terms:

What is software 'quality'?
Trying to attain software quality implies being able to meet the following goals: reasonably bug-free, delivered on time and within budget, meets requirements and/or expectations, and is maintainable. It is not easy to objectively define quality. It will depend on who the 'customer' is and their overall influence in the scheme of things. if you were to take a holistic view of the customers, you would involve the following people: end-users, customer acceptance testers, customer contract officers, customer management, the development organization's management/accountants/testers/salespeople, future software maintenance engineers, stockholders, magazine columnists, etc. Each type of 'customer' will have their own slant on 'quality' - the accounting department might define quality in terms of profits while an end-user might define quality as user-friendly and bug-free.

What is the 'software life cycle'?
A software life cycle is one of the most popular terms that a person working in software is expected to know. The life cycle begins when an application is first conceived and ends when it is no longer in use. The various in-between parts of the life cycle is enough to fill a separate book, but as a first level, the terms includes aspects such as initial concept, requirements analysis, functional design, internal design, documentation planning, test planning, coding, document preparation, integration, testing, maintenance, updates, retesting, phase-out, and other aspects.

What is 'Software Quality Assurance'?
Software QA involves the entire software development paradigm from beginning to end - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention', to ensuring that such processes are defined that make it more difficult to get into problems.

What is 'Software Testing'?
When a software is written by developers, it is a given that there will be sections that will not be working properly. Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results (eg, 'if the user is in interface A of the application while using hardware B, and does C, then D should happen'). The controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal conditions, and can cover a wide gamut of activities. Testing should intentionally attempt to make things go wrong to determine if things happen when they shouldn't or things don't happen when they should. It is oriented to 'detection'.