If you read this blog, you know I’m no fan of vacuous documentation. In my experience, “comprehensive” documentation is often not comprehensible, and likely to get stuck in a drawer […]
When to automate a test?
Along the lines of the previous post, I’ve just re-discovered a classic – Marick’s Paper on When To Automate A Test. Oh, it’s from 1998, and it’s showing it’s age, […]
Testers Taking Too Long?
We had a question on the Michigan Agile Enthusist’s list – the team was doing Scrum, four devs and a tester, and the testing was taking too long. In some […]
And More from Brian Marick
In sum: compared to doing exploratory testing and TDD right, the testing we’re talking about has modest value. Right now, the cost is more than modest, to the point where […]
Tech Debt Workshop – Update
I’m pleased to report that the tech debt workshop is full up. Aside from people who have already been in contact, I won’t be accepting any additional applications. So let […]
Be /Good/
Phil Graham recently put out an essay called Be Good. As usual, it is brilliant and insightful – and the challenge to “not just don’t be evil, but actually be […]
So, what’s next?
I could continue to explore the tech debt metaphor, or tell you what it’s like to plan a peer conference of it’s size. I am continuing to read Peter Drucker, […]
My position on Tech Debt – II
Michael Feathers recently wrote on the tech-debt yahoo group:I think there’s a couple of different ways that we can approach all of this. One is to see technical debt as […]
What does "Broken" mean?
“The foo feature is Broken”“Widgets are completly Horked”“Gadgets are FuBar under IE7”“FF3 and the wiki no work-ey” If you talk to any developer, any PM, or read the testing literature, […]
I read the news today, oh boy …
This month’s Software Test and Performance Magazine has a new monthly column by Chris McMahon and myself. “ST&Pedia” is an encyclopedia for software testers. You can download the issue here. […]
Management and Metrics – II
After the previous post, I literally said out loud “I have to blog about this”, marked the page, and put it down. I should have kept reading. Here is the […]
On Management And Metrics
Speaking of Management: Peter DruckerPeter Drucker analyzed how General Motors was run in the 1940’s, essentially defining management as a term. He wrote a number of books, published an incredible […]
An update from Matt’s day job
My last company was really top flight. I enjoyed my time at Priority Health; it’s a good company. Toward, the end though, I had this odd experience. I struck up […]
On Neogtiation
If you want to get good at negotiation, you could go to your library and check out every book on the subject, then practice by doing low-risk negotiations like bartering […]
A typical response to a typical day
Chris McMahon pointed me to this, and I thought it was worth sharing here:
Best Practices?
Let’s say you invite an Olympic marathon competitor and the Olympic Gold-Medal Winner in 100 yard dash over for a late afternoon lunch. (Did I mention – while winning the […]
New Testing Magazines
Two new testing magazines are out. Subscriptions are free; they are advertising-supported and, for now, PDF based. The first, What is Testing, is organized by Vipul Kocher of What Is […]
So … What, exactly, is a unit test?
A popular testing magazine has asked my collegue, Chris McMahon, and myself, to write an article defining terms in unit testing. Of course, the biggest term of all for that […]
Unit Testing ++
(Yes, I need to follow up on tech debt. Still …) Not to many years ago, Brian Marick pointed out that you can tell when a product has “crossed the […]
My position on Tech Debt – I
For the workshop on technical debt, everyone has to write a position paper, give a case study, do a talk, OR do a tutorial. (“One of the above.”) That includes […]