A reflection on Cash Registers

Recently I started reading Computer Programming Fundamentals. Although this book was written half a century ago, I still found a lot of insights which is still up-to-date until now. While I faced the exercises in the first chapter, I decided to provide some answers here on my blog publicly.

This time I would like to deal with problem 1-2:

Would any of these devices or the devices mentioned in the chapter make a really major change in the performance of the cash register? Try to think of a device which would make a major change in performance.

To put this into context, in the chapter Leeds and Weinberg introduce a cash register, rather simplistic 50 years ago, but still a part of the computer history. The problem 1-2 then asks the reader to imagine additional devices which makes the cash register less error prone. Having served as a cashier about ten years ago, I think I have something to contribute on that.

Continue reading A reflection on Cash Registers

An experiment on Quality and Time

Having recently finished The Gift of Time, a gift written by 15 authors for Jerry Weinberg‘s 75th birthday in 2009, and a present from Michael Bolton when I met him for the first time in 2010, I am inspired by a thought experiment based on two chapters in that book.

The first one is the one from Michael Bolton himself where he defines the Relative Rule:

A description of something intagible as “X” really means “X to some person, at some time”.

The other chapter is from Bent Adsersen on “Time – and how to get it”. I have written before on Michael Bolton’s Relative Rule here. Bent adds a new perspective on the time factor to it. So, I will start with that.

Continue reading An experiment on Quality and Time

CAST 2011: A report on the Testing Competition

Last week at CAST 2011 we were challenged by James Bach on a testing competition. While I was initially a bit reluctant to join the Miagi-Do team, the opportunity to test with all these fine folks couldn’t be missed. One of the lessons that James later taught us, is that you don’t know someone unless you have tested with her or him. So, we formed a Miagi-Do team consisting of Matt Heusser, Michael Larsen, Ajay Balamurugadas, Elena Houser, Adam Yuret, Simon Schrijver, Justin Hunter and Pete Schneider (sorry, I forgot your last name). Not all of them were Miagi-Do testers, but we kicked butt, I think. Since Matt was part of our team, we knew right from the start that we wouldn’t win any of the US-$ 1401 that James had set as a price. Here is my report on how the competition and the aftermath went.

Continue reading CAST 2011: A report on the Testing Competition

CAST 2011: Context-driven leadership

On my final day at CAST 2011 I attended James Bach‘s tutorial on context-driven leadership. He challenged us to challenge the principles of the context-driven school of testing, since he became nervous that no one did that in the past decade. This is my write-up of that challenge as a follow-up.

Continue reading CAST 2011: Context-driven leadership

CAST 2011: Build a deeper community of practice – How to organize a peer conference

At CAST 2011 Paul Holland held a presentation on how to organize a peer conference on software testing. Paul gave myself some great pointers for the upcoming organization of the GATE workshop.

Continue reading CAST 2011: Build a deeper community of practice – How to organize a peer conference