Hiccupps

My friend Rachel Kibler asked me the other day "do you have a blog post about why we test software?" and I was surprised to find that, despite having touched on the topic many times, I haven't. So then I thought I'd write one. And then I thought it might be fun to crowdsource so I asked in the Association for Software Testing member's Slack, on LinkedIn , and on Twitter for reasons, one sentence each. And it was fun!  Here are the varied answers, a couple lightly edited, with thanks to everyone who contributed. Edit: I did a bit of analysis of the responses in Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 2 . --00-- Software is complicated, and the people that use it are even worse. — Andy Hird Because there is what software does, what people say it does, and what other people want it to do, and those are often not the same. — Andy Hird Because someone asked/told us to — Lee Hawkins To learn, and identify risks — Louise Perold sometimes: reducing the risk of harming people — ...

The other day I got tagged on a Twitter thread started by Wicked Witch of the Test about people with a background in linguistics who’ve ended up in testing. That prompted me to think about the language concepts I've found valuable in my day job, then I started listing them, and then realised how many of them I've mentioned here over the years .   This post is one of an occasional series collecting some of those thoughts.  --00-- In this series so far we've looked at words and syntax. In both cases we've found that natural language is an imprecise medium for communication. We might know the same words and grammar as others ... but they will have their own idea about what they mean ... and even where we agree there is ambguity ... and all of us, the world, and the language are evolving ... all the time. Today we'll add semantics which, in a pleasing twist, is itself ambiguo...

  The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter ,  LinkedIn ,  Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me?   --00-- "We need some productivity metrics from testers" OK. I'd like to help you meet your need if I can but to do that I'll need to ask a few questions. Let's start with these: Who needs the metrics? Is there a particular pr...

  Rob Sabourin's Becoming a Code Listener session at Worqference has just finished. Although the presentation ostensibly covered technical practices, a recurring theme was how important collaboration is to establish shared understanding, intent, and context. During the Q&A, in response to a question about introducing code listening activities on a team where collaboration levels are low and testers have no access to source code, Rob dropped a beautiful analogy. As a student he used to go to high school dances. What he found was all the boys along one wall and all the girls along another. Not dancing. As a consultant he goes to client planning meetings. What he finds is testers sitting in the corner, silently, angry about the meetings being a waste of time. Not collaborating. Testers, if we want more satisfying interactions, if we want others to collaborate with us, if we want to show that we have something to offer, we have to step up and actively participate. It may feel revo...

The other day I got tagged on a Twitter conversation between a couple of my colleagues, Ben Dowen and Dan Ashby , which ended with Ben citing me as an example: But there is a trap, in that a Dev who Tests, or Tester who codes both risk becoming Test Automators ... The counter argument is Testers who code can do as @qahiccupps does, and use and build tools to explore. A jumble of thoughts tumbled out as I read it and here they are, in no particular order. It is flattering to be mentioned but I'm far from the only person doing this. Maaret Pyhäjärvi   and Rob Sabourin are vocal about the value it can bring and go out of their way to tell and teach others how to get it. Ben is right when he says I use coding as a tool, and as a tool factory. It's a means to an end. Coding itself doesn't give me a lot of pleasure. Having created a useful thing gives me an enormous amount of pleasure. I am not a great developer. But then I rarely need to be.   Yes, I have made bug fixes that...