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Showing posts from April, 2020

In Test State

The State of Testing report for 2020 has just been released. I continue to support the collection and publication of this kind of analysis because it can help us to see ourselves from a different perspective and identify changes to our work and context over time.  This time around, the authors comment: We are seeing many indications reinforcing the increasing  collaboration of test and dev, showing how the lines between our teams are getting blurrier with time. We are also seeing how the responsibility of testers is expanding, and the additional tasks that are being required from us in different areas of the team's tasks and challenges.  We were also able to see some low level changes and expansions in the technologies tested, the technologies used to test, and the technologies that may be relevant in the future I'd love to see more longer-term trend data published and, while I doubt it's easy to generate, something about approaches and outcomes similar to Sta

Unsung Love Song

Back when I had hair and an East German army surplus jacket and carried a record bag with me everywhere, we wrote a fanzine and released records together. Our first contact was twenty years ago this year. Twenty years since he sent me a copy of his debut 7" single, the first release on his Kitchen Records label. Twenty years since I gushed this review onto the poorly-photocopied pages of my zine, Robots and Electronic Brains : The Fabulous Nobody, Love and the City (Kitchen) 7" Some days I just feel like I'm getting old and other days I know it's so. Given the kick I'm getting out of the three cuts on this limited-edition 7", today must be one of the latter. Three dreamsongs of naive romance for the big city lights that could've been written for a 1930s stage play and revived for a 1940s screen adaptation starring Fred Astaire who'd do a slow soft shoe routine to the whistle solo and lean against a lampost smoking a fag for the rest. I ask

The Tester as Engineer?

Much of  Definition of The Engineering Method  by Billy Vaughn Koen chimes with what I've come to believe about testing.  In part, I think, this is because thinkers who have influenced my thinking were themselves influenced by Koen's thoughts. In part, also, it's because some of my self-learned experience of testing is prefigured in the article. In part, finally, it's because I'm reading it through biased lenses, wanting to find positive analogy to something I care about.  I recognise that this last one is dangerous. As Richard Feynman said in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: "I could find a way of making up an analog with any subject ... I don’t consider such analogs meaningful.”  This is a short series of posts which will take an aspect of Definition of The Engineering Method that I found interesting and explore why, taking care not to over-analogise. Getting Myself Koen Sota so Good Meta is Better The Tester as Engineer? --00-- In thi

Meta is Better

Much of  Definition of The Engineering Method  by Billy Vaughn Koen chimes with what I've come to believe about testing.  In part, I think, this is because thinkers who have influenced my thinking were themselves influenced by Koen's thoughts. In part, also, it's because some of my self-learned experience of testing is prefigured in the article. In part, finally, it's because I'm reading it through biased lenses, wanting to find positive analogy to something I care about.  I recognise that this last one is dangerous. As Richard Feynman said in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: "I could find a way of making up an analog with any subject ... I don’t consider such analogs meaningful.”  This is a short series of posts which will take an aspect of Definition of The Engineering Method that I found interesting and explore why, taking care not to over-analogise. Getting Myself Koen Sota so Good Meta is Better The Tester as Engineer? --00-- It is