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September 2009 - Posts

Why bugs don’t get fixed

Posted Wednesday, September 30, 2009 10:11 AM by alanpa
I’ve run into more and more people lately who are astounded that software ships with known bugs. I’m frightened that many of these people are software testers and should know better. First, read this “old” (but good) article from Eric Sink. I doubt I Read More...
1 Comments

7 Influential Books

Posted Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:18 PM by alanpa
Phil Kirkham recently posted a list of 7 Influential Books and encouraged some of his fellow bloggers to follow suit. Of course, Phil’s list overlaps mine, so instead, I’d like to present: 7 Influential Books that Phil doesn’t Mention The Feiner Points Read More...
1 Comments

Niche Professions

Posted Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:12 AM by alanpa
I have been thinking about “niche” professions – those that only appeal to a relatively small number of people in the world. Often, these professions are looked down upon by those in similar professions – or by those who don’t know much about the profession Read More...
6 Comments

Fun with Code and TestApi

Posted Monday, September 21, 2009 6:59 AM by alanpa
I took an opportunity to write some code last week. I’ll spare you the full background – short story is that the school my kids go to needed a small web app written. It ended up  being 100 lines or so of javascript and about 3 lines of html. The Read More...
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Who Owns Quality?

Posted Thursday, September 17, 2009 11:29 PM by alanpa
On request from Adam Goucher – another excerpt from How We Test Software at Microsoft .  BTW – Adam wrote a review of HWTSAM here – although Linda Wilkinson beat him to the clever title . This is from a section on quality in chapter 16. It’s something Read More...
2 Comments

Looking for the “L” word

Posted Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:03 PM by alanpa
Although my anniversary is coming up, this post is about another “L” word: Leadership. “Senior” people at Microsoft (and I assume at other companies) are expected to exhibit it. This is true for managers and non-managers alike (because, of course, management Read More...
1 Comments

Flashback

Posted Friday, September 11, 2009 1:51 PM by alanpa
I had a bit of a surreal experience this week. One of the groups I work with sent some mail asking me to review an internal report. They noticed an issue and had made some changes. I checked out the report, but it was incorrect. I let them know and got Read More...
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Organizing my Life

Posted Tuesday, September 08, 2009 11:55 AM by alanpa
aka – The secrets of my so called success, part 23. It’s Tuesday after a long weekend, and my todo list is long. The good news is that I know exactly how long it is, since (for better or for worse), I let outlook drive my daily schedule. Since I’ve mentioned Read More...
2 Comments

Good Test Writing

Posted Friday, September 04, 2009 9:35 AM by alanpa
Heusser is sad because his heroes haven’t been blogging lately (two of those have only blogged 2-3 times in the last year , so I’m not sure what he’s missing there). The good news is that there’s plenty of great writing on test (and some great writing Read More...
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Improvement through practice

Posted Thursday, September 03, 2009 1:39 PM by alanpa
In music, the better you are at the basics, the better you are on the bandstand. Even the pro musicians I know practice almost every day. I think testers (and developers) forget the value of practice too often. In The Passionate Programmer, Chad Fowler Read More...
2 Comments

Come hang out with me in October

Posted Wednesday, September 02, 2009 11:16 AM by alanpa
My travel always comes in flurries, and October is the flurry month for this year. Immediately following a personal trip (brother in-law’s wedding), I’ll be heading to STAR . (btw – if you’re thinking of attending, you can use the promo code SKWS when Read More...
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