The word “continuous” pops up continually – all of the time(!) – whether it’s integration, deployment, delivery or moaning(?) But one of the biggest tools that any tester has (or smallest if you’re this guy) sits in our head and it aids continuous learning. Let’s look at the learning reports, experiences and reflections from some [...]

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude” Shakespeare With the approach of spring in the northern hemisphere let us show gratitude to some interesting, inspiring, insightful, inventive writing that has kept some of the winter out of mind. Peer Conferences There has been an emergence of more peer conferences [...]

Testers’ activity from the blogosphere Well, what a summer the last few months have been (at least in the northern hemisphere). It’s been a period of long lazy days (with an easy-to-read testing article), sizzling BBQ days (reading a sometimes well-done, sometimes saucy, sometimes an unexpected flavour in an article), some scorching days (reading an [...]

Problems with the Q-word in the testing-domain. I have a problem with ‘quality’ – not quality, but ‘quality’ – the word, especially in the test-specific domain. Why? It’s a word and concept that has so much priming for different people that (1) It means different things (as a concept) to different groupings; (2) There are [...]

Spring – a time of renewal, re-birth and other re- words… Well, spring 2010 (in the northern hemisphere) has been eventful, diverse and – in the words of Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis – interesting! Let’s have a look at some of the topics that have been discussed in the last 4 months. Hot Topics Spring being [...]

The blog-activity-ometer has been very busy in the last 3-4 months. Plenty of output, plenty of discussion, topic cut’n’thrust and the odd (sometimes very odd) amusing post. Let’s take a sample from the smorgasbord of delights that have been those blog posts. Testing vs. Checking Let’s start at the high-end of the Richter scale… Michael [...]

So you’ve heard of Exploratory Testing (ET). You’ve heard the PR and thought it sounds interesting. Yeah, that sounds like something I’d like to try. Maybe you’ve read some of the literature in blogs (lots of people talking about it), web-sites (for example the context-driven school?), books (James Whittaker came out with one in the [...]