Software Testing Vs Programming?

I m 24, Engineer looking for a career change to software from manufacturing Industry. I know C to some extent C++ thought of either learning J2EE or .NET %26amp;C#. But friends suggested to take software testing coz


1. There are large of progrmmers are there for J2EE, Market demand going down for JAVA.


2. It take atleast 1 to 2 year to be familiar or to that level to get the job in software company.


Instead for Testing


1. I can get into industry faster (my target is 5 months time) and once into the field.


2.i can simultaneously learn prog lang to move to programming later say 1 or 2 year down the line.


what should i do?

Software Testing Vs Programming?
Getting started in the IT industry does take some effort. Learning a programming language could take the 1 to 2 years you mentioned.





If you are able to get into a company in QA the department, doing testing, and getting paid. That is good.





You then have the time to learn not only the Company's business and product, but you can also have a path to get into the development side of the house.





If/When you interview for a testing position, ask them about career path. Is there a path in the QA department to grow, and/or do they encorage switching groups/departments. Note some may have a set time they require you to stay in QA before allowing transfer, you may want to present it to them that way on an interview.
Reply:Well both are good, but what programmers think of testers are that they are always there to find bad points(which actully they are). My personal experience with testing is not good. Programmers get pissed off when they are told this part is not working properly. Then they might demand you to keep trying and get the bug repeated which is hell of a task. I also think that you need some knowdedge programming languages so that you can have the idea how it works. You can easily detect some numerical errors or bugs in state machines if you have some basic knowledge. Hope it helps
Reply:Your future lies in JAVA. Try it if you are confident.
Reply:I would try to pick up C#. That is the hot programming language at this moment. As far as testing goes, I do not know because I have always been a developer and we never had testers that were not the clients. But that is just my experience. Good luck and the money is out there.





RJ
Reply:It depends in what you like to do, I worked in Testing for 4 months as a try out and personally I didn't like it but here are some pros and cons of software testing.





Cons


A lot of death times, you have to wait for a module release and sometimes it's great because you have other things to do, but it can be extremely boring.





A lot of problems with developers, sometimes just to annoy you they release a module on a friday at 7PM and you HAVE to stay and test it.





Everyday you do the exact same thing, over and over again.





At least where I live (Mexico) the salaries aren't that good as a tester.





Pros


Once you get the hang of it, it gets kinda easy.





As you put it, it could get you in the industry faster since you don't need a lot of languages knowledge.





You get a lot of free time that could be used to study.





You get to tell people they made a mistake and that they have to fix it, that's the best part. (jk)





That's what I got from my experience and is just an oppinion but maybe will help you.





As for programming languages I would say C# is the best way to go or Java, but they are really similar so if you learn one you can program with the other.





Hope I helped you


Good luck