Testing & Movies & Stuff

Book Review: "Dear Evil Tester" If you are a tester, if you are a developer, if you just like really funny shit, you should read this book!  Dear Alan Richardson, This book had me laughing at my desk and my coworkers wondering if I had gone around the bin. I was enchanted by the sarcasm and wit, but drawn to the practical advice you had in your answers given with the Evil Tester persona. I have favorites that I go back to and read on really, really stressful days where I need a laugh. I also find myself in the essay section as well, reading some inspiring stuff. I think the essay which most inspired me was "Unconventional Influences". When I get bogged down in my own self-importance, I remember that in the grand scheme, it's all my own bullshit that is plaguing me. It's good to question things, but it's also good to be open to the answers you get from the questions. Your essay reminds me of this all the time. Influence can be a double-edged sw...

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" - Adam Savage One of the reasons I wanted to change the format of my blog was to open it up for more ideas than just discussing in fun and clever ways how movies can influence my work or how I look at my job as a tester in the field of software development. I generate ideas. I love giving people ideas! It could be anything from a product modification to just suggesting what things might look like in 20 years. Some of them are like the flying car, they will probably never happen. Others though, might be reality later on. That's half the fun. I think it's one of the reasons I like usability testing and design. I have a chance to work with something and make it even better. Testing lets me do that in all kinds of ways and I think that's what appeals to me the most, the possibility to make something better than it was before. Prediction corner are a few thoughts I have about what might happen in the near future. The...

Testing Profile: Darth Vader (Originally published April 22, 2016) A preface if you will, about how this blogpost came about and why I think it’s probably going to become a regular segment of my blog. I was tweeting with a few folks using the hashtag #TestingMovies. Which I kind of ran away with, and will keep using because it’s like free advertising for my blog. When I posted this tweet: When my friend and peer responded with: Which really got me thinking, what kind of tester would Darth Vader be? Granted, those that take things very seriously might find this line of thought juvenile, but as a lot of us are geeks, and many more of us like learning things from movies about our professions, I didn’t see this as juvenile at all. I took it as a challenge to understand and explain Star Wars in a way that might be fun and actually become a valuable lesson for someone learning how to test or how to break down a system and approach that system for testing. I believe I...

Jurassic World: Waiting Until Development Is Done To Bring In The Expert (Originally Posted on Feb 26, 2016)  While I was heading to Europe for the European Testing Conference, I had a chance to catch up on some movie watching. One movie that was on the list was Jurassic World. Ah the tale of woe that continues to be told from people messing with DNA that clearly should have been left to the prehistoric past. Science is always exciting. Bones are cool, old stuff is cool, finding things are cool, until you realize that people work long hours in the hot sun and often don’t find the cool stuff for years. Treasure maps don’t exist in reality. But I digress. Back to the point of bringing up Jurassic World and why it involves testing. “Domain Expert.” You’ve probably heard this term used if you are anywhere near a development process or follow any number of processes that require the development department have domain knowledge or at least context knowledge of...

Fun, excitement, a tester craves not these things.... (Originally published Feb 3rd, 2016) When I first starting thinking about how I would tie in testing to the SW universe, my first thought was “testers are like Jedi”, but really, that's not true. We might start out like that. We are told when we first enter the business of testing that it's boring and repetitive. Expect downtime and figure out how to use it well. You need to learn about what you are testing as quickly as possible while you are testing as quickly as possible. But not too fast, lest you miss something. You start reading from the great masters, learning from the holocron of information available about testing. You take on the mantle of padiwan and develop a zen-like demeanor about all things testing. You develop a hero complex when people congratulate you for finding a high severity bug, bringing it to everyone's attention. It works for a little while. And then, you are seduced by th...

Hello readers! I decided that while I have some nostalgia for livejournal, it might not be the best thing to use going forward. I also decided that I had boxed myself into this notion that I would only post about things relating to movies and testing. I decided I had more to say and I wanted something where I could write a blog post and not be so concerned that I'm not following my own strict format. I also know this is dangerous since that strict format has kept me from making hot-headed posts. (Me, hot-headed... phffff... LOL). I'm going to re-post previous posts from LiveJournal here so that I there is a record, but going forward, I'll probably just post to here. Hopefully this works out better for everybody!