Testing Lessons Learned from Sherlock Holmes

Interesting post on how crime investigation can be related to software testing and non technical skills like observation, deduction and knowledge can be used to improve you as a software tester.

A Tester's Translation Table

It seems to me that lots of people are experiencing lots of confusion regarding what lots of the testing terms we throw around signify. In an effort to remedy this circumstance I have applied my investigatory powers to observe what people really mean when they say these words. Forthwith, the answers which I have compiled.

A History Of Build System

In my younger days, before I knew any better, many projects I worked on compiled and published their software manually. You'd type cc and then copy these bits over there and then zip that directory and post it to there. Eventually, we figured out we could write little scripts to automate all the tedious bits and make it less fragile and more repeatable.

Wonderful discussion on the importance of abstraction and how very little abstraction is present in the automation tool market.

How would Pareto Learn Python

I am trying to write How would Pareto Learn Python with a similar view –concentrate FIRST on those 20% things which are essential for 80% of the Python scripting and then learn further. The outcome that I am targeting is a light-weight tutorial, which makes one quickly get into programming mode rather than sticking to excessive theoretical stuff.

Nice little tutorial on Python if you are interested in learning Python.

Explaining the Excel Bug
By now you've probably seen a lot of the brouhaha over a bug in the newest version of Excel, 2007. Basically, multiplying 77.1*850, which should give you 65,535, was actually displaying 100,000.
Before I try to explain this, I should disclose that I did work on the Excel team, but that was thirteen years ago. I haven't been there for a long time. I don't even think I know anyone on that team any more. I'm just trying to explain the bug a little bit as a public service.

What's a "Test Framework"
Wikipedia defines a framework as "A basic conceptual structure used to solve a complex issue. It also warns that "This very broad definition has allowed the term to be used as a buzzword."
When I use the term, I mean any support, infrastructure, tool or "scaffolding" designed to make testing easier, and (often) automated.

Testing Applications and APIs
What about testing the APIs themselves? What if anything is different? The first approach mirrors the small test approach. Each of the API calls is exercised with a variety of inputs and the outputs that are verified according to the specification. For isolated, stateless APIs (math library functions come to mind), this can be very effective by itself. However, many APIs are not isolated or stateless, and their results can vary according to the *combinations* of calls that were made. One way to deal with this is to analyze the dependencies between the calls and create mini-applications to exercise and verify these combinations of calls. Often, this falls into the so-called typical usage patterns or user scenarios.

Product Review - Test Design Studio
TDS is a complementary tool to QTP and WinRunner, which upgrades your programming experience to that of VisualStudio. Since the programming experience in QTP is extremely bad to begin with, upgrading it may not seem like a big deal; but let me tell you here and now – TDS revolutionizes the field of QTP and WinRunner programming, and you owe it to yourself to try it out. Once you give it a try, I doubt you ever go back.

Updated Watir Tutorial
I taught a Watir tutorial at the Agile 2007 conference last month. Watir actually grew out of a tutorial that I taught regularly between 2003 and 2005. It was a Ruby-based tutorial that Brian Marick originally designed for teaching testers scripting in Ruby. Brian eventually developed those ideas into his book Everyday Scripting in Ruby. I took over the original class, focussed it on web testing, and we developed Watir as a spin-off of the class. Watir’s intuitive API is largely the result of feedback from early prototypes in these classes.

Performance Testing Guidance For Web Applications
The main purpose of the guide is to be a relatively stable backdrop to capture, consolidate and share a methodology for performance testing. Even though the topics addressed apply to other types of applications, we focused on explaining from a Web application perspective to maintain consistency and to be relevant to the majority of our anticipated readers. You can also download this guide.

Recommended Reading For Learning Python
I have the opportunity to spread Python to some junior/newbie programmers. In doing so, I wanted to compile a concise list of reccomended learning materials. The intended audience is someone who has a basic familiarity with programming but no specific Python experience.

Blogger NEW + Firefox 2 = 'Exceptional'  Error!
This was something I have never witnessed before and was unusual, considering the fact that blogspot is owned and hosted by Google! The error message told me that it was a ' Temporary Google Server Error ' and to try in another ' 30 Seconds ' !

Boundary Value Testing at WHET4
It was quite intriguing as it quickly became apparent boundary testing is not as well understood as we might think.  It has not been covered in much depth as it is considered so simple.  Most people tie the concept of boundary testing with equivalence class.  But equivalence classes are equally simple on the surface, but have subtle complexity.  Now when you talk about the boundary of an equivalence classes, things become even murkier.

The Answer Will Hit You Like A Ton Of Bricks
Question: Would you rather be hit by a ton of feathers or by a ton of bricks? Most people answer "A ton of feathers". Some people - usually ones who have been accosted by this question before - answer "It doesn't matter, a ton is a ton". I answer "It depends!" (Are you at all surprised?

Why Testometer
How TestingGeek came up with the idea of Testometer? Is it serving any purpose? What are the plans for Testometer? What kind of applications/situations will be present..  and answers to similar questions are present in this blog by TestingGeek.

8-year-olds should test my code
I had played with UCBLogo for two weeks and hadn’t made it crash once. Brian brought the whole thing down in three commands. The most telling part is that when I tried to reproduce the defect a week later I couldn’t. I issued rt with a ton of 9s and just couldn’t get it to break. As it turns, it only crashes when you omit the space, which of course I didn’t think of doing. It took me more time to reproduce the defect than it took Brian to discover it.

Getting Started With Exploratory Testing - Part 3 & 4
Jonathan kohl discuss how tester with scripted testing background can move to the exploratory testing? Sure it is paradigm shift and difficult for testers who are accustomed of testing in a particular way. Jonathan gives some suggestions and tips on test ideas that you can use to get started with Exploratory Testing.

Do You Need More Testers?
How do you know how many testers are appropriate for any given situation? Is there any organizational or industry standard that can be followed for this? Michael Bolton explains in his blog, how thinking about other possibilities are important in cases like this.

 "MIPPING": A Strategy For Reporting IFFY Bugs
James Bach in this blog entry explains, how he used MIPPING or Mention In Passing to make sure all the issues are recorded some where.

Getting Started With Exploratory Testing - Part 1 & 2
What is the importance of skills like investigation, improvisation in the context of exploratory testing? Is there any similarity in the job of doctor, musician and tester? Read Jonathan Kohl's blog on the issue.

Playground & a Thought on Testing.
Have you wondered how complex a task like building playground could be? Great analogy of building a playground and software testing. Mike Kelly explains beautifully, how wrong is the perception that anyone can do software testing.

Watir and Selenium
Ever wonder why there are two tools for one task, i.e testing web based applications? Read on from the author and contributor of Watir and Selenium, Bret Pettichord.