Andy Lester was in town last week, and he did a wonderful talk on technical debt. Andy’s main point seemed to be that technical debt (like real debt) is a […]
Extreme Programming – In One Page
Now, folks, don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of Extreme Programming, but I do not think that XP is the “one true way” or the “one right […]
Software Fiction
Jon Bruce continues to improve as a writer. He’s got an excellent series going on now called “Startup” – click here, scroll to the bottom of Startup, and read upwards. […]
Strategy Letter VI –
“Writing applications that work in all different browsers is a friggin’ nightmare. There is simply no alternative but to test exhaustively on Firefox, IE6, IE7, Safari, and Opera, and guess […]
What’s a "Test Framework"?
Shrini Kulkarni has been after me to define my terms; after all, I keep writing about “Test Frameworks” but I’ve never defined the term. Wikipedia defines a framework as “A […]
In the mean time …
Here’s a comic that had me laugh out loud, I thought you might enjoy. The image is clean and appropriate for work(*). It’s a little story about the difference between […]
Be Careful what you wish for …
I haven’t had much time for blogging lately. A few great, interesting, cool things that are swamping me right now – – Jim Brosseau’s Book, “Taking Ownership”is completely through the […]
Interesting People at GTAC – I
Or: Test Eye for the Framework Guy Douglas Sellers, The Inkster Guy gave a talk on writing a domain-specific language for testing. His idea is to write the test cases […]
GTAC – Bonus Section #3:
Another speaker claimed that “The only Exhaustive Testing is when the tester is exhausted” – we agree. By Exhausive Frameworks, I mean the ability to do everything. The problem is […]
GTAC – Bonus Section #2:
We have seen a wonderfully isolated, encapsulated, poly-morphed, design-patterned, auto-tested, mocked app … – That could have been written procedurally in 500 Source Lines of Code– But now consists of […]
GTAC – Bonus Section #1
Our GTAC Talk evolved over an extended period, and had a lot more material than the time allowed. So, just for you Creative Chaos readers, I’m going to blog our […]
Why GTAC is different
As I write this, it’s 3:36PM on August 23rd, and I am sitting at the New York Google Office, just after co-presenting a talk on interaction-based testing. I am sick. […]
… and Steve Poling Replies
This went out over SW-IMPROVE, my software discussion list. I will post my reply tomorrow … I heartily agree that the first two items are anathema to effective software development. […]
Interlude
This looked so interesting I had to post it: “Myths in Software Engineering” – A few of my favorite myths: – Software development consists of discrete, separate activities that can […]
Testing the Stapler
To answer the Stapler question, Mike Kelly referred me to this post where he had 144 tests. Yes, 144 tests, and, offhand, they look to be real, valid tests. To […]
… And Carry a Big Stick
Yesterday I copied over my iTunes Library as well as some key conference CD notes. Big Mistake; I’m up to 2GB and haven’t started yet. 🙂 Both James Bach and […]
Look Ma, the works of Shakespeare on a stick!
At STAREast this year, James Bach had a “portable testing training kit.” Roughly the size of a small purse (or, er … a “man’s bag”), I’m sure it had various […]
Models – II
(There aren’t the Requirements Models you are looking for …) Sometimes, the models we use are predictive (like yesterday) or are analogies. For example, e-mail is a pretty straightforward analogy […]
Real Science
Does anybody else remember the Middle School Science Fair? The idea is to apply the scientific method to something practical, then show off all the budding scientists. If I remember […]
Test Automation – IV
Right now one of the “louder voices in the room” for test automation is the “Agile” test automation voice. And by that I mean something very specific – that you […]