My Meeting with James Bach

Last Saturday I had the privileged to meet with James Bach (If you are a software tester, I expect you to know him) and as you can see below I was

Can't express how excited I am :) and he played the dice game with me. Thank a lot @jamesmarcusbach for your time. pic.twitter.com/ZPwD0MfCll

— mubbashir (@mubbashir) September 12, 2015

I asked him about Sapient Testing->Non Scripted Testing->Testing vs Checking  and how these 3 are different.

He corrected my understanding of Oracles I was thinking about it too specific from the perspective of checks by focusing on pre defined rules whereas "In testing, an “oracle” is a way to recognise a problem that appears during testing."

 We talk about check automation where he told me about this wonderful analogy that think of automated checks as a web and tester as Spider.

The spider is responsible for creating it, managing it, to find the right place and spot for it, a place where there is a greater chance to catch bugs and so on...

And then comes the best part when he played the Dice game with me 

Just after few minutes in the game I felt myself bit overwhelmed :)

Few of the points I took as a take away after that session:

• Taking clear and correct (Yes correct) is extremely important
• Simplify problem: Start with the very basic try understand the system with the very basic data
• Don't get yourself too attached with the basic data, once you are sure how it is working for simple data - "Explore", "Randomise" and Look "Below the surface"
• Use Focus / Defocus heuristic when in doubt use focus when frustrated Defocus, walk around, change your perspective of viewing 

While we were walking out of the coffee shop he saw me looking at his Cap (those who know me, would know why :-D I wear Cap all the time ) and then he told me he give Cap to tester who work for.

I have been told by @jamesmarcusbach that only @Lalitbhamare @huibschoots @CuriousTester and @testertested have His branded Cap #SoJealous

— mubbashir (@mubbashir) September 15, 2015

That got some responses with respect to who else has one :D

One thing which made me quite happy was that he was aware of what we Software Testers from Pakistan are doing at the moment mostly because of my dear friend @arslan0644 

I told him briefly about STEP (Software Testers Engagement Programme) an initiative which bunch of my fellow testers took to bring closer the community

@arslan0644 I need to tell you all about my meeting with @jamesmarcusbach https://t.co/HbNsSg5hkq

— mubbashir (@mubbashir) September 12, 2015

What is the most important skill a software tester should have?

What is the most important skill a software tester should have?

In the below video are the answers from a conversation with Tony Bruce at EuroSTAR 2011 last November.

Following are the answers:

0:33  Communication- Fred Beringer @fredberinger

1:14 Ability to Think

1:30 Analytical and Technical 

1:50 Objective look, think(+1) and present his/her thought - Fiona Charles @FionaCCharles

2:20 Communication (+1) 

2:30 Communication (+2) 

3:20 (depends) Critical and Through (for some domain)

3:32 Passion and Enthusiasm  

3:48 Knowing what battles to pick

4:14 To learn - (Andy Glover @cartoontester)

4:43 Has to have many (Curiosity, Intelligence, desire for better software/world  )

5: 25 Question every thing

5:32 Think out side the box (+2)

5:46 Think (+3) - Nancy Kelln @nkelln

6:00 Communication (+3) - John Stevenson @steveo1967

6:12 Not an agile tester (coz it has become a hype)- Stefaan Luckermans @stefaanl

(please let me know if you can identify anyone else or for incorrect identification(s) :D)

Thinking and Communication are the winner.

I believe testers should have technical skills, and thinking is pretty much required in any technical job (O.K. in almost any technical job) but see how many people are saying "Communication".

Communication is important, it's real important for a good tester and doesn't only include the formal, template filling kind of communication i.e. Test Plan, Test Cases, Session Reports, Bug Reports or any  other mode of sharing your findings, but informal kind of communication is equally important.

The informal chit chat with a developer or any other team member about the product, process bug or bug fix helps us a lot. Similarly how to be team member rather then acting like quality police, how to help other team members and how to seek help from other team members (yes any team member with any specific role, developers, DBAs, System Administrators included). 

Similarly we should be able to communicate with other testers to learn from them and we should be able to share our views and opinions about testing with other testers.

No matter how good we are, we can not work in isolation.

Top 100 Blogs for Developers (Q1 2009) from Jurgen Appelo

The updated list of Top 100 blogs for developer from Jurgen Appelo for Quarter 1 2009 is out, I have always enjoyed reading posts on http://www.noop.nl.

What exactly is there for a software Tester:
There are many reason a Tester should follow these blogs just for example:

1. Its such a Treat to read: Beautifully written, ranking have been explained and blogs which are not recently updated are no longer part of the list.

2. One can find a great list to follow on twitter: Just clicked on the link at column Author / Twitter in from of the blog.

3. You will find some great software testers in that list: (Though this has nothing to do with their credibility as a Tester or as Tester's Mentor) Its good to see James Bach’s Blog among top 30, Tester Tested! have made to the list (last time he was in bonus 25 blogs worth reading)

Thanks a lot for the effort Jurgen Appelo.

Time to sync the list in my rss reader :)

'Testers Are Idiots'

Testers are Idiots
It starts by saing: That’s right: "Testers are idiots. The practice of testing offers no innovation. Testing is boring, manual and repetitive. It’s not a career. Testers aren’t as smart as developers. They’re nit-picky, pencil-pushing quality/process geeks. They’re beside the point and are easily replaced. Testing is not a career; it’s a necessary evil between application users and the brilliance of developers."
These statements are from an audience of testers..

Surprised??
Not really !!

Testing market in Pakistan.

at http://club.drivenqa.com/ Ahsan Choudry asked me about the Testing market in Pakistan.
(update: club.drivenqa.com now have its own domain this thread can be seen here)
Below is my reply to him on this:

Before sharing my point of view I really want to know how do you see it?
Well it is growing as now organizations are looking for Software Tester. I am doing Software Testing for around Two years now, and I know some great developers in Pakistan but unfortunately i haven't came across many Testers. I am pretty sure that there will be(or there should be) software testers in every organization which develop softwares but i don't see them around on line and a simple googling can reveal it .
But there are people who are doing software testing see the google trends, we(The Testers of Pakistan) are just not verbal enough!
(Update Pakistan Rank 2 by that time)
for me the reason for this is we do not have many institutions teaching Software Testing. When your words are not backed up by your education you wait for you experience to back them up. I am pretty sure you will see more and more Pakistani Testers online pretty soon as our experience will become our Teacher..
The Bottom line is Market is growing, Organizations have Software Testers, They are hiring more and more Testers but we(The Testers) haven't started claiming our cyberspace yet.