In my previous posts on the topic, I discussed a move away from “prescriptive” test cases towards a more descriptive technique using mindmaps. We’ve been exploring this technique for a couple of months now, and have made a couple of refinements. I think the best way to discuss them is with a hypothetical example. An…
Is software testing all about looking for bugs? In one of my first blog posts, I stated that I view software testing as a journalistic activity. As a software tester, I aim to get reliable, timely facts to the people that need them. Bugs are an interesting story, but they’re only part of the overall…
Hey all, haven’t been posting on the blog much lately, been a little preoccupied: YAY NEW BABY. My wife and I welcomed our second son Noah on 10/24/2013, which is awesome. And we’re home from the hospital, which is also awesome! It’s always interesting to see how other disciplines outside the software industry handle “the…
Fly the great big sky, see the great big sea Kick through continents, bustin’ boundaries Take it hip to hip, rock it through the wilderness “Roam” – The B-52s Ok, first, three weeks ago, I talked about a desire to throw out the last of our Factory-style test cases in favor of some kind of…
Last week, I mentioned a desire to find a way to make our testing documentation more lightweight and effective. I spent some time trying some things and now I have what I’ll call my first iteration ready to demo. The Goals The goals, to reiterate what I wrote last week, were these: To capture test…
So come on and walk with me tonight and we’ll talk. If I repeat it, it’s ‘cause I mean it and I don’t know what to do in a conversation. It might take a little time, but you know, baby I’ve got the time. Good Luck – “Same Stories” Sometime around the winter of 2011…
“…my songs aren’t written on a schedule… It’s been more con-fessional than pro-fessional. – Bob Dylan The Regression Testing Problem I work on a commercial product. We release several times a year, and that’s been going on since I started on the team five years ago. Like (I assume) most teams that are in that…
Big hand’s on 120/little hand’s on E. “AKA Driver”- They Might Be Giants In one of the sessions I attended at CAST this year, there was a discussion of how testers’ roles have evolved on software projects. It was mentioned how – in the days of Lean Startup and its emphasis on rapid delivery –…
Testers should jump to conjectures, not to conclusions. – Jon Bach, Keynote, CAST 2013 This week I was fortunate to be a last-minute addition to the attendee list for CAST 2013 in lovely Madison, Wisconsin. Somebody dropped out 3 days before the conference… I found out I was going on Saturday. I had already planned…
I remember it like it was yesterday. My Company was starting a new online product, and had employed The Consultants to come in and help. The Consultants told The Company that A: they needed to employ an iterative development lifecycle (RUP) and that B: they needed software testers to help them. The Company, in…
Note: in the context of this article, “test automation” refers to the classic definition of test automation i.e. automatic fact checking. I sympathize with those who object to the term and the paradigm that follows it. I do believe that automatic checking has a lot of value, though, and I suspect this article will help…
Yesterday, I posted four reasons why an ATDD workflow might be a useful thing to try out with your team. Here’s one more: BDD-style step definitions provide a convenient opportunity to make your test automation more gray-boxy. In one of the many real-world case-studies examined in Gojko Adzic’s book Specification By Example: How Successful Teams…
Last week I attended an excellent training in Rapid Software Testing from a Mr Paul Holland. It was really enlightening and now I really feel like an ass for saying that there isn’t a testing body of knowledge wherein testers can continually improve their testing skills. I say all kinds of stupid stuff that I…
Rereading yesterday’s post, and also seeing some of the comments (and having some personal discussions offline), I can see that I might have inadvertently sent the wrong message: My point is certainly not that testers just suck and everybody should just take some classes and apply for dev positions. My opinion is the absolute opposite…
This post is in response to Alan Page’s post Tear Down The Wall and Phil Kirkham’s response The Wall Is Still There. EDIT: Some points in the comments made me want to clarify some of what I’ve said here. A follow-up post is here. I’m a tester, and I’m learning to code. Why? Do I…
