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Attend the latest Web Seminar - “Envisioning the Next Generation of Functional Test Tools" Brought to you by StickyMinds.com and Better Software magazine *Sponsored by ThoughtWorks* Register and learn what Jennitta Andrea and Ward Cunningham believe to be the new wave of functional testing tools based on the TDD business process. This vision will help inform the strategic and tactical decisions of both tool users and tool vendors. Join us February 19, at 11 a.m. EST. http://www.sqe.com/go?WS021908SL
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Read our list of the latest news about all things related to software development and defects that made the headlines. .... more
"I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong." ~Benjamin Franklin
Taekwondo-mation--Training Your Scripts for Dynamic Combat by Dion Johnson The taekwondo-mation journey continues as master Dion Johnson dons his combat robes for a lesson in self-defense. The enemy: exception handling. In this week's column, Dion exposes the ways of exception handling and how you can train automation tests to defeat this enemy. Justifying Security Testing in QA by Ryan English As corporate budgets remain tight, most of us are tired of always having to justify additional spending. When security testing pops up on your QA radar, you probably realize that more people and money are needed to make it a reality. But what your boss really wants to see in your plan is a return on investment. In this column, Ryan English will help you set up the facts before you try to justify security testing in QA to your manager. Hidden Assumptions: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You by Linda Hayes Old software may not always work as well as it seems. The mentality of "If it isn't broke, then don't fix it" could be the culprit. In this column, Linda Hayes offers a few suggestions to help you look at your software with a more critical eye, which might help you realize where your old software is broken or in need of attention. Videocast Update Presents: Clips from Lee Copeland's "The Nine Forgettings" People forget things. Some forget the names of old friends, others forget computer passwords. Some people forget birthdays.But Lee Copeland is concerned about things that the testing community is forgetting. In the latest Gray Matters podcast, listen to a few clips from his STARWEST 2007 presentation, "The Nine Forgettings." Listen to the latest Gray Matters podcast at: http://www.stickyminds.com/podcasts#GM0108 And for more of Lee's presentation, visit the new Videocasts page at http://www.stickyminds.com/videocasts. Better Software Conference & EXPO 2008 - Development Lifecycle Practices
Repeating the Unrepeatable Bug by Jonathan Kohl At some point in their careers, most testers experience the frustration of "The Unrepeatable Bug." Find out why one tester thinks that bug is a myth, and learn ways to duplicate the seemingly impossible. Back to Top 
Desensitizing Ourselves for Disaster For several weeks now, when I press the Call button on my smart phone, it adds the number four to the telephone number I've dialed, it tries to connect, and then fails. In addition to this, the letter "P" on my keyboard has stopped working. You don't realize how many words have P in them until the letter is stripped from your personal alphabet. (That last sentence had five Ps.) Also, for some time now, the email program has been flashing reminders for meetings that occurred months ago. While these are curious defects to me, what is the most bewildering is my reaction to each. I've adapted to life with a phone that doesn't work right. I've rewritten emails or text messages to avoid the letter P. I've discovered many ways to make a call go through without having to press the Call button. And I continue to dismiss the reminders that pop up again and again when I'm working in the email program. I'd like to know why these things are happening and fix them, but the timing is never quite right to investigate. These issues occur when I am in the middle of a task, so I work my way around the defect and proceed to forget--again--about the errant four, missing P, or the extra reminders ... until it happens again. Now I find myself mindlessly avoiding the Call button, consciously avoiding the letter P when I write messages from my phone, or quickly hitting Dismiss All on the reminder window so I can get back to emails. When my phone recently started spontaneously turning itself off and I repeatedly turned it on without thinking once about not pushing past the defects and taking it to get repaired, it hit me that I had been trained by the flaws of the tools to accept the defects. I've become so accustomed to dealing with things that still work, just not as advertised, that it doesn't even occur to me anymore to find it unacceptable. And that is just, well, unacceptable. I wouldn't publish an article half written, sign off on an issue of the magazine that has fifteen empty pages, or look the other way if StickyMinds.com suddenly stopped returning search results. And yet, I've essentially said that it's fine that the tools I use in my daily life are OK as sub-par, not-properly-working tools. But there's some danger to this thinking. If we become OK with letting the little things go, aren't we driving the relaxation of quality for all things? With each minor defect that we decide to work around, don't we help open the door to bigger, more dangerous defects? By accepting that the tools we use are good enough when really they aren't, aren't we setting the stage for work-arounds, bugs, error messages, or failures to be the norm? Email me and let me know what you think. Until next time ... live long and build better software. Holly Bourquin For more articles on time and project management, software development, and testing, peruse the StickyLetter Archive. Back to Top
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