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The article presents an overview of modern and classical symbolic execution techniques which are used in software testing to explore program paths and to find errors in complex software applications. The article notes the input values for symbolic execution are symbolic values, the values of a computer program's variables are symbolic expressions, and the computed output values represent a function of the input symbolic values. The challenges of symbolic execution such as path explosion, constraint solving, and memory modeling are also mentioned. Topics include execution-generated testing (EGT) and directed automated random testing (DART).

In the article, the author discusses how he tests his own software. He claims that he tests his software over and over again during the development stage to avoid debugging, hand checking and to do it all over again. He cites several software checking techniques like desk checking, single-stepping and random-number testing. He also explains how to use the Mathcad software in the testing process.

The article discusses software testing, looking at how testing can be used as a knowledge acquisition process instead of as a quality assurance activity. The author discusses how defects which are found during testing can be constructively applied to software and examines the concept of orders of ignorance. Information is provided on managing test complexity, what constitutes a successful test, and the transmission of information.

The article offers information on how products featured in the January 2013 issue of the "Computer Shopper" magazine were tested. It notes that each product is subjected to qualitative and quantitative tests to determine how it performs in practical use. Presented are graphs for performance, battery life scores and costs used in the magazine's "Reviews" section. A brief description of benchmarking software and games tests is provided.

This article presents answers to the question: "Would setting up a test environment that is used exclusively for that purpose, require purchase of extra software and OS licenses?". This depends on the terms of the licensing agreements. The spectrum from full price to free can depend on a number of factors including: scope and size of the planned production software installed base; length of time needed to complete the testing and possible customization of the software before it is production ready; use of the test software elsewhere; overall cost of the test software required and whether continual updates to the software may be necessary; nature of the application; and the amount of support required from the vendor.