A while ago, I called for some participation on the state of our craft. I promised back then to present some intermediate answers in late January. Here they are.
Continue reading Responses from the programmer and tester surveys8 things you ought to know if you do not know anything about hiring a software tester
In a recent blog entry over at 8thLight’s blog Angelique Martin points out to 8 things you ought to know if you do not know anything about hiring a software developer. Having been involved with the Software Craftsmanship movement since the early days, and 8thLight has played a major role in that movement early on, this list was compelling to me.
In short, Angelique reminds us to ask potential new employees for the development processes they used, their development practices, – particularly TDD, pair programming, short iterations, and continuous integration – and how they educated themselves and kept their claws sharp. She also points out that she would ask for a proof of their talent, how they estimated, how deadlines are met, and what they can say about the costs involved when developing software.
This list was so compelling to that I decided to put up a similar list with the things I was looking out for hiring a software tester. I believe there are some unique skills I would look for in a software tester that I would not necessarily look for in a programmer. So, here it is.
Continue reading 8 things you ought to know if you do not know anything about hiring a software testerTester Challenge Summary
A while ago I put up a challenge for software testers. Here is the mission I used back then:
Product:
Regression Test CalculatorMission:
Test the regression test calculator for any flaws you can find. You might gain bonus points, if you can find out how the calculation is done. Another set of bonus points if you can come up with a better approach.
In the meantime I found out that Ajay Balamurugadas actually found the link to the website, and sent it to James and Michael. I think he deserves some special kudos for this.
These are the responses I received.
Continue reading Tester Challenge SummarySome surveys on the state of our craft
One of my colleagues made a claim yesterday which I would like to put some numbers on. I raised the question on twitter, and received suspicious answers about the numbers of my colleague. Please forward this survey to anyone you know who is programming: http://www.shino.de/programmer-survey/ It consist of just four question, so you should be able to answer them in a few minutes.
Over twitter I also received the feedback that things are worse for testers. I would like to put numbers on that as well. Therefore I also put up an equally small survey for tester: http://www.shino.de/tester-survey/ Please forward this survey to anyone in the software business that you know of.
From time to time to I will publish some of the results. I aim for end of January for the first set of data.
Complexity Thinking and the MOI(J) Model
Last year I started to dive into the theory behind complexity thinking. What puzzled me ever since is the relationship between complexity thinking and the stuff that I learned from Jerry Weinberg. One sleepless night I stood up from bed, and searched my material from the PSL course. There I learned about a model that helps me leading people in different ways. While thinking over it, it occurred to me, that complexity thinking is a small subset of the MOI(J) model. Follow me on my mind-journey.
Continue reading Complexity Thinking and the MOI(J) ModelA testing challenge
Yesterday James Bach rumored around a link to a test case execution time calculator. Besides the fact that it’s complete non-sense to use such a thing for professional testing, I started to play around a bit. I ended up with a ridiculous result.
I think there is more to it. So, here is your mission, if you dare to accept it.
Product:
Regression Test Calculator
Mission:
Test the regression test calculator for any flaws you can find. You might gain bonus points, if you can find out how the calculation is done. Another set of bonus points if you can come up with a better approach.
“Say, how many books did you read this year?”
At the beginning of November I attended a conference together with my boss Henning Wolf. While flying back to Hamburg, waiting for our plane, we talked about things, and I mentioned some lessons from a book that I was reading at that time. “Say, how many books do you read within a year?” he asked. I couldn’t answer that question directly, as keeping in mind that this was my seventeenth book would distract me from reading the content. So, I looked it up, and was amazed.
I am sure, I do not exceed the number of books that for example Michael Larsen read this year, but I was still amazed about the number – having estimated it at about ten or twelve. I decided to visit back the books I read, and see which lessons stayed current even after having read them. This list is based upon my notes over at Library Thing, where I looked up which books I finished this year. Some of them I started back in 2010. Some of them are also in German. some have an English translation, others don’t. Maybe time learning some German for some of my readers. :)
Continue reading “Say, how many books did you read this year?”Some insights about TDD
At the recent meeting of Hamburg’s Softwerkskammer – the German Software Craftsmanship movement – we worked through a Coding Dojo on the Roman Numeral Kata. Michael Norton wrote today about one piece that worried me as well. I think Michael did a fantastic job on tackling a different approach. But he reminded me that I wanted to put up some of the thoughts from the Coding Dojo.
We had about 12 participants in the dojo. After explaining some pieces about the format and the kata, we started the dojo. As the kata started, we had one participant asking questions up to the degree that the pair in front of the keyboard stopped doing anything.
Eventually we got the team back up to continue working on the problem. The claim of the interrupter was that we didn’t yet understand the problem well enough to design the solution. Another claim was that TDD was not a design technique. Let’s take a closer look at both of these.
Continue reading Some insights about TDDA Christmas gift from a tester for a tester – Part Five
This is the fifth part of a series of blog entries on a gift I got from Matt Heusser. Today, I’m heading for tying together all the loose ends.
Continue reading A Christmas gift from a tester for a tester – Part FiveA Christmas gift from a tester for a tester – Part Four
This is the fourth part of a series of blog entries on a gift I got from Matt Heusser. Today, I’m heading for multiplayer games with our 11 year-old who has just same basic knowledge about English words.
Continue reading A Christmas gift from a tester for a tester – Part Four