I have not written on this blog for a long time due project pressures and lots of weekend travel. In one of the interviews that I was taking for "contract" positions, I asked this question "how do you describe Gene of a tester"? This question when expanded  - took me following thoughts

1. Are testers made by birth? how different are these people from those who learnt skill of testing after birth?

2. Can "testing" in pure sense be taught like  - say music? how to teach testing?

3. How to distinguish born testers from other testers? This is required for spotting testing talents

4. Who can be better tester ? How to recognize and develop such skills from early age ?

Recollecting from what I read on net - Any good tester should be learning every day and increasing their knowledge of the what-if scenarios that lie outside the scope of the defined specifications. Testers who are NOT programmers, tend to loos this edge. Developers ensure the application meets spec and they are wonderful at it. Testers expertise and skills lie in the exploratory areas of "what happens if I ...

I welcome thoughts on this subject ....

As this happens to be the last post for this year - let me sign off  with saying "Happy and prosperous new year 2005"

Shrini