I just left this as a comment to a post on Software Testing Club. My newest comment, on Page 2 of the thread: If you are talking about a transactional […]
Do you stackoverflow?
Stackoverflow is a relatively new community for software developers. It’s goal is to connect people with questions to people with answers. Joel Spolsky, of JoelOnSoftware fame, is one of the […]
Second-Class Citizens III
I’m reading Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto. It’s a great little book. On thing I saw struck […]
Metrics, Schmetrics – II
I’ve been putting off writing this. It is, to be honest, a little painful. Some metrics, like expenses, income, and cash flow, for example, are really really important. You need […]
Second Class Citizens, ReDux
I just posted this to the Software-Testing Yahoo Group: I’ve seen the second-class citizen issue in many disciplines. I first read it explained well in one of John Bruce’s Essays. […]
Amazon Review
Did you know that James Bach refer to Jerry Weinberg as the “Prince of Testers”? Did you know that Jerry led the first documented independent test team, in the 1950’s? […]
Metrics, Schmetrics
Long-time readers will know that I am very wary of metrics for software engineering. Oh, there’s the usual problems: 1) Generally, software engineering metrics are proxy metrics. You really want […]
In Defense of Testers
I just ran into this short article that explains some of the long-term benefits of applied critical thinking and the tester’s perspective. Stick with it through page two; it’s worth […]
May Issue of Software Test and Performance
Chris McMahon and I talk about Unit Testing Tools in our column in Software Test&Performance this month, on page nine. As always, it’s a free download.
Three Kinds of Improvement
Malcom Gladwell, the author of Outliers: The Story of Success, is credited with saying that “Talent is the desire to practice.”, and I tend to agree. In his article in […]
But wait, there’s … more!
So, something relatively unique happened last week. As usual, people were talking about testing on the JoelOnSoftware discussion list, and I recommended the context driven school. One of the posters, […]
Integrity – III
As you may have guessed, I’ve been waxing nostalgic about my time as a military cadet lately. I was a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol for seven years – […]
My SW Craft Blog
I have a software craft blog that I am much less active with than Creative Chaos. I just put a post up on perfectionism and the worse-is-better approach. I think […]
Integrity – II
Barry Schwartz on Morals and Ethics in the work world: Replace with “Incentives” with “Metrics” in his speech, and Barry’s talk could easily be a keynote level presentation at any […]
Integrity – I
For those who don’t know, the US Government is currently offering trillions of dollars – yes, the amount is now in the trillions – to loan or purchase parts of […]
If I user twitter, does that make me a twit?
Twitter is interesting because you can say something and others can respond; when you search for a username you get the entire conversation around that individual. This means you see […]
Where’s Waldo?
Fifteen years ago I was a cadet in the Civil Air Patrol – this picture was taken at the Middle East Region Cadet Competition in 1995 (click for full-size): This […]
What do you believe about information systems?
This I am currently teaching a second-semester-freshman course on Computing with Spreadsheets. The book focuses on click-here, click-there, clicky-clicky-everywhere with formulas, functions, and graphs, but I’m trying to make the […]
… and the lighter side
– From xkcd.com … And SwashBookingNo, I spelled it right – Swash-Booking. My collegue and friend James Bach, has a new video up on Competitive Swashbooking. The basic idea is […]
Alternatives to (testing) Certification
Earlier in the week, I suggested that certification was one way to demonstrate commitment to craft – that there were other ways. Lisa Crispin asked me to expand on what […]