Hjälper dig bygga system med användaren i centrum
We are currently evaluating tools to aid us in creating, administrating and executing tests. Development is done in Visual Studio 2008. I would really like to get some input from any testers and developers using this part. Is it good, great or do you hate it and why?
We most likely will evaluate the product this spring but it would be nice to get a head start by reading other peoples reflections beforehand.
The next available class in Rapid Software Testing with James Bach will take place in Lund. It is hosted by House of Test and has a very reasonable fee. I have not invited James to give any class in Gothenburg before summer but depending on what happens there may be one this fall.
Thanks to all the people that voted against the EURO in Sweden the dollar is now more than 50% more expensive for us swedes than half a year ago which does affect the possibilities to get trainers from abroad to Sweden.
Now is the time to sharpen our knowledge!
I love test design and I think it is an essential part of good testing. I enjoy analysing complex data and functions and often create graphical models or tables of the design. But when it comes to actual test cases I start to hesitate.
What is the reason for me to create test cases? Well the answer must be that I or someone else can use them later as support for executing tests. Executing tests is often interpreted as following some detailed instructions and comparing predicted results with actual results. So what is the reality of test cases, let´s hear it! In most cases I do NOT need any test cases at all in order to do some really good testing! All of the tests I run at the moment are done without any test cases at all. I am doing a menu tour of the whole application, taking one part at a time and at the same time making notes. I am using the user guide as inspiration and am also updating that document with what I find. Every page has my comments, questions and bugs. I am setting up the basic functionality of the system and at the same time doing some software attacks. The most common are the input constraint attack, trying to make all error messages appear, OOPS - making mistakes and trying to correct them. All of these techniques help me find lots of problems, some already known but forgotten. Read How to Break Software by James Whittaker or get some info from James Bach on how to perform this kind of general attacks.
Next step for me will be to test the whle system flow. I have created a simple general process from creating a survey, asnwering, analysing and then presenting results. That is basically what the system does, helps users to collect data and get statistics from it. My plan is to create a number of test charters - high level test cases with test ideas - and collect data in excel from where I can analyse the results.
We are at the moment evaluating an administrative system for test cases, logs and bug report but so far I have only been using the bug reporting part. I find most test cases administrative systems to be really crappy and not supporting any reasonably good way of working. The reason they are built the way they are is that that was the easiest way to build them! They are all built like a file explorer with folders and subfolders and unnatural stepwise descriptions of testcases. Boring and ineffeicient.
SAY NO, when you think it is a bad idea to work a certain way or with certain systems. We testers need to lead the way. Who else is going to create a better way of working for us? And you WILL meet resistance, changing hurts. But befioe you give up, think about if you want to spend the rest of your career working like you are today. The choice should not be that hard when you look at the long term picture.
Let´s get better!
I recently read a very interesting exam work made by two students at BTH in Sweden. The title is Predicting Fault Inflow in Highly Iterative Software Development Processes. They apply different predictive models to real projects and see how good they are at approximating the number of faults that appear over time. You have probably heard enthusiastic measurement people that try to convince you that they have the best answer. I won't go into details regarding the actual measurements but will go directly to the conclusions. In brief thay found out that the S-curve was the worst model of the ones compared. Their measurements showed that more complex models did not necessarily give more accurate results and a simple linear model was a valid alternative.
So IF you need to measure. Use a simple linear model that will be good enough. And in my experience bug measurements can be one factor to measure progress with but it is seldom very exact and never give you the full picture.
Remeber: It does not matter how exact you are when the measurements are wrong to start with!
I have decided not to translate the older blog posts that I have written for the last three years. It will be too much work. Sorry about that for the non swedih testers. I hope to write some new interesting stuff instead. I am also hoping for some insightful comments on what I write. The comments in Swedish have been limited to something like five comments a year. I am not sure how to interpret that fact.
I keep on reading new books and write an occasional book review. I try to use my new knowledge in testing and in teaching. I will report the things I find interesting and useful.
The books I am reading at the moment are: What did you say - the art of giving feedback by my favourite author Jerry Weinberg, I almost feel like a collector since I got the last six books from Dorset. He really is a fountain of wisdom. Behind Closed Doors - project management written by Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby. The PSL workbook material from the class I took last month. User Stories Applied by Kohn - I like the idea of skipping USe Cases but am a bit disappointed in the ideas of testing that I have read so far.