notes and rants

I’ve been meaning to write a few more posts about The Passionate Programmer . So, before I forget, here is one of those posts. When I first read The Pragmatic Programmer 5 or 6 years ago, one of the many suggestions that stuck with me was the idea of...

It’s “commitment” time at Microsoft – which means that employees across the company are plotting out what they’ll be doing over the next 10 months (the weird thing about commitments is that we set them in August / September, but we review them in June...

I have a couple of stories based on a bug I was passively investigating the last few days (“passively”== an “issue” showed up on an alias I was on and I took a closer look). The lessons learned, as far as I’m concerned, come from the investigation (or...

I’m depressed this morning. That doesn’t happen often with me – especially when it comes to thoughts about software engineering and software testing. But today, I’m down in the dumps. I’m frustrated, annoyed, tired, and completely lacking luster. Why...

I’ve been reading The Passionate Programmer , and so far it’s been a great read. It often feels that parts of the book are written by a much more talented and successful version of me (the author is a pro-level saxophone player, a successful speaker,...

Those of you who follow me on twitter may have noticed I’ve been in a lot of meetings lately (actually, I don’t know if I’ve griped as much as I thought I have, so just trust me). Anyway – when I attend meetings, I try to ignore my laptop and phone and...

I had a late morning meeting today in a MS building nowhere near the one where I normally work. To cut down on wasted time driving, I went directly to the building where my meeting was, got some coffee and opened my laptop to book a conference room (there...

I guest-posted on the MSPress blog today. Check it out for an article on test patterns.

Every month, I send a newsletter to all testers at Microsoft. About six months ago, I started asking a “question of the month” in the newsletter. The questions vary from yes / no to long essay-ish answers. Each month, I write a short follow up on the...