This post is a combination of two things - an advise and a request. In case you are wondering, it is not complicated advise and simple request, it's a simple advise and challenging request. If you like challenges of testing web applications, you may like this challenge as well.

So let's talk about the advise first. Find defects to find defects quicker - I am sure most of us already know this, isn't it? But sometime we do need to state and explain obvious. We do it all the time in testing - we state and explain obvious defects isn't it? Well, we need to that because obvious is obviously not obvious for everyone :-)

Software testing is a skilled profession and like all the skilled professions, you get better at it with practice. However, there is a difference between doing day-to-day testing in job for many years and practicing ...

I attended weekend testing America’s session number 18 on Saturday. It was my first WTA session and I must say it was a good learning experience. There was an interesting exercise given by James Bach. The exercise was about Test Charters.

As part of the exercise, we had to critique existing test charters and improve them. I went through the definition of test charter given in the exercise to understand more about test charters. I tried to critique and improve the example charters, based on the definition given in the exercise. I was not satisfied with the outcome and wanted someone to critique my (improved /modified) charters.

My (improved :-)/modified) test charter was discussed during the briefing session and Michael Larsen , Wade, Shrinik and Lalit gave interesting feedback on my charter. During that briefing session, I realised that I can draw analogy of writing test charters to writing user ...

Software testing is a relatively new field and has changed considerably in past few years. It is not taught in many universities and when I moved from development to testing in 2001, I was confused about it. I tried to learn from internet, books, forums and was not impressed with the information I got. I even did my certification (CSTE, if you are interested) but that wasn't very useful either. During that time, I came across many interesting theories / concepts and after working in the industry, I know they are not true, and are myths. Unfortunately, some of these myths are still in practice and widespread.

Myths in software testing has done this field more harm than good. In this post, I will explore popular software testing myths, why they are myths and what wrong these myths are doing to our profession?

1. Testers are Gatekeepers Of Quality - Nothing ...

Last month Komal Joshi and Patrick Martin presented @ GTAC 2008 conference in Seattle, USA. Google Test Automation Conference is one of the best conference for testing / automation and it was certainly a good experience for TestingGeek to present this at GTAC.

This presentation will give you basic information on how simple tools like SVN, batch files and task schedulers can be used to create Continuous Integration for mature desktop applications.

Solution like these are one of the best way to move teams towards more mature continuous integration environment. Using this approach, teams can start to see and appreciate benefits environment like this will bring to the projects.

Hope this presentation will be easy to follow and you will understand the basic concept behind this. Please subscribe to our newsletter if you want to remain on top of whatever is published on TestingGeek.

Recently I finished a three days training course on Rapid Software Testing with Michael Bolton in London UK. This course was very effective and had elements related to learning, questioning and thinking all along. It reinforced my belief that testing is not a ‘phase’ performed towards the end or a ‘100% automated suite’ as claimed by many Agile shops. Software testing is much more than that and it is extremely important for the successful delivery of any project.

This was my first training course related to software testing and I was extremely happy with the outcome of this course. I have tried to capture my experience of this course in the following paragraphs.

Day -1

Training started with the discussion on a seemingly simple concept i.e. understanding of ‘problem’. One thing that is bound to happen in Michael’s class is lots and lots of questions. These questions are ...

We have seen many discussions on why people came into software testing and why they still love to work as a tester. People have interesting reasons, for some people its creativity, for some people its challenges of automation, for some its relation to system thinking, domain expertise etc. All of these are good reasons to be in testing field and if you are in testing because of similar reasons, probably you are enjoying your work and may be exciting people around you about testing.

Unfortunately, over the years I have seen many people staying as tester because of wrong reasons as well. Following list is the collection of wrong reasons / motivation to be in software testing field and work as a tester. If you are in testing because one of these reasons, probably you need to find a good mentor, understand testing properly or change your field.

1. Software Testers ...

I am defect. For some people I am a mild inconvenience and for some I am their worst nightmare, probably a life threatening nightmare. For many years, people like you have treated me as a hunting target and treated me as a non-living entity - without any emotion, say or dreams. Till now, I kept my silence but now I had it enough. TestingGeek has allowed me to tell my story to the world, to tell you truth about me and my feelings.

You call me so many names (And all of them are bad BTW), but do you know anything at all about me? Do you know where I lived before you forced me to live in your code - to be found, discussed, killed, ignored and humiliated? People tell me so many things, but do you realize reasons for my existent? I know I am not desired, I know I ...

Recently I finished a book on creativity called - Sticky Wisdom. It's a nice book and gives practical advices on how creativity can be fostered in our day to day life and especially at work. I found it very relevant to software testing field for many reasons. I have seen many people complaining about or questioning how creative software testing as a field is? There is a notion that software testing is mundane and repetitive activity with same problems and similar solutions (call it best practice) - even on different projects, teams or products.

This is the first in the series of articles in which I will discuss techniques suggested in this book and explore how they are relevant to software testing field. In the first article of this series - I will discuss freshness of ideas and how fresh ideas and different perspectives can be generated and are relevant to software ...