At the London Tester Gathering event last week, I overheard someone ask the question: "What's the first task that a tester should do on a project?". There were various contrasting responses, such as: "write test case documentation", "play with the product", and "give an estimate for the testing effort". Although many projects are run differently (which is probably [...]
“How did you miss that bug?”
I've recently been involved in a discussion regarding the blame culture that lives within the software development industry. You hear the stories everywhere, where a bug is found on a live environment and people (usually management) automatically start finger-pointing at individuals to blame them for the bug, either for missing it during testing, or for missing it in the [...]
How much “Technical” knowledge is “enough” for testers?
I know that this question will more than likely cause more of this ever ongoing debate and that the question itself is full of holes (stemming answers such as: "enough to who", or "it depends"), but this is a thought that I wanted to get out there... One of my previous blogs was about the [...]
“Test Data Generator” tool is now available!
With the help of an awesome developer friend, we've created a new testing tool!! The tool is a "Test Data Generator". It allows for the quick creation of sample test data to paste into an input field. You can download the tool from my LinkedIn Box account here: Dan's LinkedIn Box Any feedback about the tool, [...]
“Is Testing An Art…” published on The Testing Planet website.
The Testing Planet have been ever so kind as to publish some of my ramblings on their website! If you haven't already read it, check it out here: http://www.thetestingplanet.com/2012/11/is-testing-an-art-or-is-it-something-more-2/ The Testing Planet (#TTP) offer a fantastically insightful magazine for testers of all experiences. Their latest issue which is out soon is based on the theme of "the [...]
“Who needs questions? Let’s just test!……”?
"Can you list at least 2 test cases for testing a blank sheet of paper?” - This was a question listed on another LinkedIn discussion. There are over 80 comments (so far) that appear to be split right down the middle. Half of the commentor’s automatically started to list out various test cases... (Some of [...]
The world is full of bugs!!
Over the past few weeks, we've all heard the various stories that have been all over the news about software defects and vulnerabilities in software security... Firefox pulling the latest update due to a massive security bug (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19909106), The problems that consumers have been reporting with apple's iOS6 maps, The disaster with RBS's banking system [...]
6 areas to consider when thinking about testing estimations…
Setting estimates can be a difficult task. I've seen many mistakes made in the past from people missing out essential testing tasks in their estimations, to setting a testing estimation based on a percentage of the development estimation set for the project, to people completely guessing at a number of days/weeks/months that they believe the [...]
The amalgamated role of the modern software tester.
Throughout my time in the software testing industry it has become apparent that the role of a software tester has constantly been evolving. I remember when I first started out, and my day-to-day tasks basically involved planning and performing manual testing on various software such as; pc drivers, printer software and websites... Now, my role [...]
The mysterious case of the bug that could not be reproduced…
I've been reading a topic on the LinkedIn groups recently about a bug that was found but was rejected by a developer as "Could not reproduce". The person who initiated the discussion had said that he went to re-test the defect, but found that it was un-reproducible and he was looking for advice. As always, there were [...]
Dan Ashby 