November 2008
Interviewing the Program →
Testing, in the quick definition that James Bach and I use, is questioning a product in order to evaluate it. One way of questioning the product is to ask ordinary questions about it, and then to…
The sad state of open source monitoring tools →
I’ve been looking lately at open source network monitoring tools. I’m not impressed at all by what I’ve seen so far. Pretty much the least common denominator when it comes to this type of tools is …
Managing external assemblies within source control →
We all know how important source control is, without it writing code would be a nightmare. Along with your actual code, any other development items should be checked into source control – automated…
Gearing Up Windows (to make it usable) →
At my workplace I am using Windows Box. I have been using windows since Windows 3.1.x when we use to boot with DOS and then run it to get the GUI. Windows was never this difficult to adjust :( for…
I have woken up…have you? →
Yesterday night I reached home from office at around 9PM, I turned on the TV news channels with hope, but could only see Taj burning. Even after approximately 48 hrs our India was burning. I…
ANN: AQtime 6.10 now available! →
AutomatedQA is pleased to announce that a maintenance release is now available for AQtime: AQtime v.6.10.
What’s new in AQtime 6.10 can be found on our web site at
…
Back-of-a-Napkin Agile Assessment →
I am often asked: “How do I know if my team is really Agile? They claim they’re Agile, but I think they’re cheating.”
In response I usually ask a barrage of questions aimed at discovering how well…
Software Craftsmanship mini-conference (London,... →
I’m on the review committee of Jason Gorman’s Software Craftsmanship mini-conference. If I can overlap it with a trip to France, I’ll definitely be there. Here’s the blurb:
This is a…
A New Testing Challenge →
I’ve been spending a good deal of time lately thinking about the cognitive process of testing: What makes a good test case? How do we “know” that the software is fit for use? And why is that an area…
Happy Thanksgiving 2008! →
Here’s wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving day. It’s a great time to reflect on the past year and all that has transpired.
I Now Better Understand Cloud Computing →
I was fortunate to be able to attend a Microsoft Emerging Technologies presentation a couple of days ago. Apparently one of the ISV Architect Evangelists has family in the area and came up to spend…
TotT: Testing of the Turkey →
No TotT post today. Happy Thanksgiving to all our North American readers.
Continuous Integration for iPhone/Xcode projects →
I just committed an initial pass at an Xcode builder for CruiseControl. If you want to try it out you’ll need to get the latest code from svn. Right now the plugin is extremely rudimentary: it…
How do you size your virtual test labs? →
In the past I’ve written about and asked the question - “Does your software test lab have a champion?“. Typically, it is your lab champion who takes up (among other things) the case of sizing…
How Can I Further My Testing Career? →
I recently answered the following question, as part of my “Ask the Expert” role on searchsoftwarequality.com: “I am working as a black box tester on web applications. I want to improve my technical…
Lesson Learned in Moving →
After much ado, I am finally moved into my new home :) It nearly passes all the specs that I wrote on buying a home in the area: 1. The house will cost less than the appraised value 2. The house…
Using Perl for Mass In Place Editing →
Have you ever wanted to update some text in a bunch of files all at once without a hassle? I had reason to do this recently and turned to Perl for my solution. Once I found the implementation…
Software craftsmanship: London Feb 2009 →
Jason Gorman announced the first Software Craftsmanship conference, which will take place in London on the 26th of February 2009. The conference is about the “hard skills” that programmers…
Life is production issues →
I do want to explore quality, and uncertainty, and ROI. For that matter, here’s a story I’d like to explore: On November 7th, we ate at Pizza Hut, and I had a problem with the boneless wings, in…
Observations from combining tester with other... →
This article is about combining the role of the tester with other roles….
Rapid Software Testing Course →
I’ve just gone through a three day course in Rapid Software Testing (RST)…
Guide to Writing Testable Code →
It is with great pleasure that I have been able to finally open-source the Guide to Writing Testable Code. I am including the first page here for you, but do come and check it out in detail.
Scrum QA without Scrum Dev →
Bob Galen’s STPCon session, entitled “Agile Testing within SCRUM”, had an interesting twist I did not expect. After a Scrum primer, Bob suggested that test teams can use a Scrum wrapper around their…
Displaying The Wrong Error Message Worse Than None... →
You know what’s worse than displaying a cryptic, inscrutable error code or number when something goes wrong on your Web application? Showing the wrong error message.
For example, if you go to…
VATs Funny →
Maybe not so funny if your company has VAT hard coded at 17.5% Wonder how many have, wonder how many companies even thought about this happening and had plans for it or will it be a minor Y2K type…
Virtualization and Software Testing - Do you have... →
We introduced a new feature on our website - the ability for users to pose brief technical queries on virtual lab management and/or VMLogix LabManager. If you have particular technical queries…
The Silicon Valley Software Testers and QA Meetup... →
Click here to check outThe Silicon Valley Software Testers and QA Meetup Group!
What I want to be known for →
I attended an event on reputation management with Julia Chanteray last night where apart from some great tips on how to manage our reputation we were asked to tell the group what we want people…
Grammy Award for Michael Bolton and others →
Michael Bolton, the singer has won Grammy Awards. This Michael Bolton , a little known mandolin player and largely known singer of good intellectual software testing has been awarded for his…
Going to Vancouver →
I’m off to Vancouver, British Columbia, teaching Rapid Software Testing to a corporate client the week of December 8. Live near there? Want to get together and chat about testing? I’ll be there…
A Reminder →
One of my blogging pals and Privateer Scholar Matt Heusser wrote a recent blog asking for ideas for what people wanted to read about - ranging from Kanban to uncertainty to the hard-to-define…
Notes from Øredev 2008 →
I spent one day at Øredev 2008 ( http://www.oredev.org ) since they invited…
Priceless Could Mean Cheap, I Suppose →
I love Peyton Manning as a spokesperson, and MasterCard has taken an excellent tone with his new line of Suite Talk advertisements, where hotel employees in cities where Manning has come to play…
Will people Test More and Develop Less during the... →
We were at the Software Testing Conference 2008 - it was well organized and a really well attended conference. Given that I know of a couple of conferences that had to cancel in the recent past…
Posted by Alex Icev, Test Engineering Manager As... →
Posted by Alex Icev, Test Engineering Manager As you may know our core vision is to build “The perfect search engine that would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you…
artistic testing →
I like to point out that historical, well-vetted aesthetic frameworks are useful for evaluating software. But what if similar aesthetic frameworks could not only validate software itself but…
Tip - don’t write about freelance work unless… →
A while back, about 18 months or so ago I wrote a blog post on Freelance Software Testing. I shouldn’t have because now every week I get a handful of impersonal and full of spelling mistake…
Unit Testing Freebie →
Came across this so might as well go for it and see if I can learn something… Typemock are offering their new product for unit testing SharePoint called Isolator For SharePoint, for a special…
Training is Controversial…Really? →
I just returned from a business trip to Israel. I was a long time on the road (a week at EuroStar followed by a trip to Israel to teach at our 2 R&D centers there). So, I really lucked out because I…
Thoughts on the Future of Software Testing →
[ed: We are grateful that James has posted some additional thoughts for our community following his outstanding webinar. Make sure you watch the video of his uTest webinar on The Future of…
Sartrean Enumeration →
It’s a small thing, often tucked into offhand code, but come on, folks, can we ditch the Sartrean Enumeration Method?
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We are all one-of-nothing. I get it. But…
Fear of SaaS Security →
Last week I started a series of posts to examine why people are afraid of SaaS. So, let’s dive in and examine one of the fears that I have seen come up all too often - fear of SaaS security….
We Won An Award! →
I’m ambivalent about honours. Recognition is nice, but I’m skeptical about the notion of winning over other worthy nominees. Nonetheless, at the EuroSTAR conference, I accepted the inaugural …
Award for Best Contributor to Testing Community -... →
Hi All, Felt like sharing the good news with you all I have been chosen for the award “Best Contributor to Testing Community - Test Republic” which shall be presented at the 8th Annual…
All Set For Version 2 ? →
One of the ‘-ities’ I rarely see discussed is maintainability Are companies so focussed on getting Version 1 to work that they don’t think about what happens if it’s a success and has…
I'm Thankful For... CHEAP GAS →
The last few months we’ve heard sooo much about the declining economy…
On the flip side, I’m really liking the plummeting gas prices! Aren’t you? I paid
$1.88 a gallon today! It’s been years…
Maven Frustration →
Browsing Howard Lewis Ship’s blog I came across a short post on his maven frustrations:
I still like the concept of the repository and the transitive dependencies; that aspect of Maven is…
What Impressed Me at Oredev →
Fredrik Scheja did a wonderful talk about testing against requirements. I’m so glad he avoided the common tropes about the importance of “testable” requirements (he offered “Scheja’s Law” which is…
DDD7 Slides and Code – Pex – The future of unit... →
Yesterday, Developer Day (DDD) 7 was held at Microsoft UK. I delivered a presentation on Pex, a new project from Microsoft Research. I provided an introduction into Pex, the…
two agile antipatterns →
Both of these have been crossing my path with increasing frequency in recent months (not at work, but in conversations with others whom one would think would know better): 1) Stories are scheduled…
