Archive for December, 2009

Who does the pinpointing? Martin Jansson 4 Comments

Jerry Weinberg has, in his book “Perfect Software and other illusions about testing”, expressed a very important observation, namely who is responsible for pinpointing the bug. The tester finds the bug, tries to reproduce it, then adds as much information that he/she has such as log files, configurations, test data and so on. When you estimate time for testing […]

New tool – WordFreq Martin Jansson 3 Comments

A disclaimer… I am no developer, but I have developed a tool. As I develop I have the mindset of a developer, not the tester. I have done lots of mistakes, intentionally not implemented good/needed things and considered what parts I can get away with in the first release. This tool might not seem big and […]

ISTQB Certification is not a qualification Henrik Emilsson 28 Comments

Let me begin by saying that these are my beliefs ever since I took the ISEB/ISTQB certification. But when I thought of this recently, I think I need to make a statement and try to help all those that are rejected because they are not certified. ————————————– In the search for a qualifying certification many […]

Not all testing is software testing Martin Jansson 4 Comments

In many discussions about testing methods, courses, techniques, approaches etc it is usually software testing that is in focus. I cannot see why the limit is set to just software. For instance, the excellent course Rapid Software Testing advocates, by its name, that is meant for personel who perform testing of software. It could perhaps be […]

Grounded Test Design Rikard Edgren 9 Comments

For quite some time I have felt that the classic test design techniques don’t add up to the needs of software testing that tries to find most of the important information. At EuroSTAR 2009 it dawned on me that it is time to describe the method that I, and many, many others, have been using […]

In search of the potato… Rikard Edgren 4 Comments

When preparing for EuroSTAR 2009 presentation I drew a picture to try to explain that you need to test a lot more than the requirements, but we don’t have to (and can’t) test everything and the qualitative dilemma is to look for and find the important bugs in the product. Per K. instantly commented that […]

Notes from EuroSTAR 2009 Rikard Edgren 5 Comments

It was Stockholm again this year. Good to not have to travel far, but since you are travelling I wouldn’t object to something more exotic, and warmer. Next year it is Copenhagen, again. I had a full-packed program with 4 days of tutorials, workshops, tracks, short talks, test-labbing, conversations, so in total it is quite […]

Is our time estimation on testing valid? Martin Jansson 4 Comments

What do we actually base our time estimations on when delivering a plan to a project manager? I know that we initially can have a vague idea on what to include and what must be done. I am sure that we can even make a rough estimation on how many resources we need in some […]

The Inquisitive Tester – Part II: Question the specs the test eye No Comments

Statements in specifications try to clarify and are inevitably an interpretation of what the author thinks need to be more specific. I.e., they try to be a more specific model than what existed before the spec. And “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_E._P._Box). Every specification you encounter is persons’ interpretations, and  […]