ronpih's weblog : Testing

James Bach on Hanselminutes

ronpih — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:37:00 GMT

http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=205

Nice Post from Marlena Compton

ronpih — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:53:00 GMT

http://marlenacompton.com/?p=545 - Testing is Interdisciplinary.

Stack Exchange Testing Site

ronpih — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:51:00 GMT

I just found out about this today: http://testing.stackexchange.com. I'm there...

AnitaG's Blog

ronpih — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:05:00 GMT

Anita George is a principle test manager at Microsoft and has started to blog about test management. There are relatively many folks blogging about testing but not too many blogging about test management so I appreciate that Anita has started blogging.

I need to review my list of Software Testing Blogs

ronpih — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:10:00 GMT

My list of Software Testing Blogs hasn't been updated in a while. Some links are stale and I'm sure that there are some new blogs that should be added. While I'm at it, I should look at my list of Analysis Services related blogs.

Maybe this coming weekend...

GTAC 2008 Videos

ronpih — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:22:00 GMT

GTAC is a cool idea. I see that there are videos of this years talks.

Continually Improving Tests

ronpih — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:56:00 GMT

I had a conversation with someone this week about how to improve the efficiency of our automated test runs. One thing I suggested was going through our test suites and getting rid of obsolete, redundant, and troublesome tests. I expected to get pushback around us not having resources to do the work but instead the pushback was around getting rid of any tests at all. Apparently, some folks think that if you reduce the number of the tests you run, you reduce the effectiveness of your testing. I respectfully disagree. At some point in time, the tests will grow to an unmanageable number. Before that, you'll find your testers doing nothing but maintaining your huge body of existing tests when they should be testing the product.

In my ideal world, testers would always be cognizant of the cost of a test as well as its benefit. They would also be continually improving their tests - refactoring them, consolidating them when appropriate, removing redundancies. They would always know the content of their test suites and where the trouble spots are. Tests for an area would be factored into the appropriate layers (more on this in a future post) based on the layer's purpose. The tests suites would be improved based on feedback like missed product issues, peer review, and increasing knowledge of the product. Fixes wouldn't be band-aids over symptoms but rather would be done with a consideration of the architecture of the test suite and framework. The test automation would be continually improving rather than gradually giving way to entropy.

I realize this is an ideal world but I'd like to think we can move in that direction. A good place to start is where you currently are. When you create new tests keep these ideas in mind. When a test breaks, fix it the right way rather than the applying a band-aid over the symptoms. When new feature work happens, create new tests with consideration to the existing tests for that area - maybe even rework those existing tests to handle the new feature behavior. Remove tests that no longer apply. Gradually we can move to a place where we have enough confidence in our tests that we (and others) won't be afraid when their number goes down.

Tester Center - Where's the Updates??

ronpih — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:07:00 GMT

MSDN Tester Center hasn't been updated in a while. We haven't given up the ghost - we just lost some of the resources that we were relying on to update the site. We're working on fixing the problem and now it looks like we should start to be back in business around mid-October.

In the meantime, we (specifically, Charles Sterling) have been putting Tester Center videos up on Channel9. Check them out!

Testing Videos?

ronpih — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:42:00 GMT

Jonathan Kohl, in a recent blog post, says we need testing example videos. I agree.

CAST 2007 had an evening testing event that produced some of these. Folks that were there were able to get copies of the videos.

I see that one has shown up on YouTube. I wonder if the rest can be posted as well?

James Whittaker has started blogging

ronpih — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:52:00 GMT

His first post is here.

Software Testing / James Whittaker on Channel 9

ronpih — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:09:00 GMT

This is very cool...

Clint Huffman added to Software Testing Blogs List

ronpih — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:41:00 GMT

Looks like some interesting perfromance testing related stuff there.

http://blogs.technet.com/clint_huffman/

James Bach's Book

ronpih — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:56:00 GMT

Last year at CAST, I spent time in James Bach's class, Self Education for Testers. That class really opened up my mind to possibilities I hadn't considered.

Now I see that he's writing a book about things he mentioned in that class. I can't wait for the book to be available. This will go on my "must-read" list.

The Turkey Test

ronpih — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:04:00 GMT

This is a great post on things to be aware of if you ship a global application. It turns out that the Turkish locale is a great stress test for getting locale-specific stuff right.

(Pointed to by Jeff Atwood's Blog)

Software Testing Books at Tester Center

ronpih — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:37:00 GMT

I'm involved in MSDN's Tester Center in the area of software testing book reviews. The current "Note from the Editor" at TesterCenter talks a bit about why testers should read books about their profession. What's your favorite software testing book?