This Wednesday I held a presentation at DevCon 2011 entitled Exploratory Test Design (slides) I like this terminology a lot, because it encompasses the two things I want to see in software testing * looking at a lot more information sources than requirements * vary execution and look for many things It was also a […]
During my first paternity leave I learned sourdough baking. During the second I couldn’t help writing an ambitious paper, or a small book, about people-oriented test design, about things beyond test design techniques, close to the exploratory testing tradition. It can be downloaded here. It contains collections of knowledge, and generalizations of my ten years […]
How do you find out what is important, in your specific situation? I think it is the essential problem for all activities with complexity. I think it is impossible to do really good software testing without the ability to dismiss things as not important, and dig deeper for matters that are important (I believe it’s […]
quantitative numbers in a world of qualitative feelings I am not against measurements in general, they can surely be useful. I use length when building things, weight for baking, time for appointments etc. I often use numbers for various things in my bug reports. But metrics are something different; metrics are measurement plus value. “Should […]
I recently acquired the best product in the world, for me. It is a Victorinox serrated multi-purpose chef’s knife that I use to slice bread. In 2000, chefs around the world voted it as the best knife in the world. I want to go one step further, and name it the best product in the […]
In testing text books you can read that compatibility testing should be performed after the functionality testing and bug fixing is completed. I guess the reason is that you don’t want to mix these categories, but hey, what a waste of resources. My suggestion is to perform the compatibility testing at the same time as […]
I used to be a bit skeptic towards the word “heuristic”. It seemed needlessly advanced, and things are possible to explain in other words. But when I read Gigerenzer’s Gut Feelings about how to catch a flying ball, it all came together. For software testing, which can’t be complete, is dependent on many factors, with […]
If you are a faithful reader of this blog, you have probably read some challenges of established ways of testing. I write stuff like “anyone can do non-functional testing”, “look at the whole picture”, “test coverage is messing things up”, “you can skip all testing techniques”, “requirements are covered elsewhere, so focus on what’s truly […]
I have for a long time felt that something is wrong with the established software testing theories; on test design tutorials I only recognize a small part of the test design I live in. So it felt like a revelation when I read Gerd Gigerenzer’s Adaptive Thinking where he describes his tools-to-theories heuristic, which says […]
Credit cards are taking over the usage of notes and coins. This has benefits, but it is not possible to toss a coin with credit cards. Bob van de Burgt coined (!) the term flipability at EuroSTAR 2010 Michael Bolton tutorial, coin exercise. It is a lovely word, and can be used more generally to […]