For a long time, I’ve admired Robert (“Uncle Bob”) Martin’s persistent advocacy of craftsmanship in programming and software development. Recently on Twitter, he said . @LlewellynFalco When programmers do their jobs, testers find nothing. — Uncle Bob Martin (@unclebobmartin) December 8, 2014 One of the most important tasks in the testing role is to identify alternative interpretations of apparently clear and simple statements. Uncle Bob’s statement appears clear and simple, … Read more
A few weeks ago, I posted a Very Short Blog Post on the bare-bones basics of testability. Today, I saw a very good post from Adam Knight talking about telling the testability story. Adam focused, as I did, on intrinsic testability—things in the product itself that it more testable. But testability isn’t just a product attribute. In Heuristics of Testability (material we developed in a session of Rapid Software Testing … Read more
presented by the EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference
Michael Bolton hosted a live Google Hangout where he will discuss his recent Masterclass entitled:
‘How to get what you want from Testing’.
(For Testers, Developers & Managers)
In this session, Michael explained the role of skilled software testers, and why you might not want to think of testing as “quality assurance”.
“Computers and their software are two things. As collections of interacting cogs they must be ‘checked’ to make sure there are no missing teeth and the wheels spin together nicely. Machines are also ‘social prostheses’, fitting into social life where a human once fitted. It is a characteristic of medical prostheses, like replacement hearts, that they do not do exactly the same job as the thing they replace; the surrounding … Read more
Testing is not about making sure that test cases pass. It’s about using any means to find problems that harm or annoy people. Testing involves far more than checking to see that the program returns a functionally correct result from a calculation. Testing means putting something to the test, investigating and learning about it through experimentation, interaction, and challenge. Yes, tools may help in important ways, but the point is … Read more
A plan is not a document. A plan is a set of ideas that may be represented by a document or by other kinds of artifacts. In Rapid Testing, we emphasize preparing your mind, your skills, and your tools, and sharpening them all as you go. We don’t reject planning, but we de-emphasize it in favour of preparation. We also recommend that you keep the artifacts that represent your plans … Read more
Imagine a software project. Imagine the things that you want to accomplish, the problems you might encounter, the workarounds you could apply, the accidents (both happy and sad) that might happen, the missteps you may take, the steps you can take to prevent them; all of the actions you can perform to manage the project. Now, make a detailed plan that takes all of your expectations into account. The more … Read more
Jerry Weinberg tells a story (yes, it’s me; I’m telling yet another Jerry Weinberg story) of meeting an old friend who looked distraught. “What’s the matter?” Jerry asked. The fellow replied, “Well, I’m kind of shellshocked. My wife just left me.” “Was that a surprise?” “Yes, it really was,” the fellow said. “I mean, we had had some problems, but I thought they were all settled.” Jerry paused for a … Read more
Calculating a ratio of passing tests to failing tests is a relatively easy task. If it is used as a means of estimating the state of a development project, though, the ratio is invalid, irrelevant, and misleading. At best, if everyone ignores it entirely, it’s simply playing with numbers. Otherwise, producing a pass/fail ratio is irresponsible, unethical, and unprofessional. A passing test is no guarantee that the product is working … Read more
In the Rapid Software Testing class, we focus on ways of doing the fastest, least expensive testing that still completely fulfills the mission. That involves doing some things more quickly, and it also involves doing other things less, or less wastefully. One of the prime candidates for radical waste reduction is documentation that’s incongruent with the testing mission. Medical device projects typically present a high degree of risk. Excellent testing … Read more