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Showing posts from October, 2016

A Good Run!

“We got a good run from the tests” the tester stated. “So what’s the story?” the scrum master asked. “85% Pass” comes the reply, meekly. “OK, just need to fix that 5% then.” The scrum master announces before striding off to announce that the team is only a couple of % away from success. Our tester takes a moment to try and process the exchange… Firstly , their own words: “We got a good run” Why had they said that? Well - in a sense - it was true. They had executed the tests before, and they had returned a much higher failure rate. But the code being checked was the same... OK, so there were at least 3 obvious ways to interpret the data. The app code meets the criteria checked by the tests. ( Based on test run 2 ) The app code does not meet the criteria checked by the tests. ( Based on test run 1 ) The tests are as reliable a the toss of the coin. ( Based on both test runs ) Its surprising how unlikely people are to choose (3). Secondly , the scrum

Programmers & Testers, two roles divided by a common skill-set.

When we switch people from programming to testing and vice versa may reduce the quality of our software. I’ll get some quick objections out of the way: But, A person can be a great tester and programmer.  - Yes I agree. But, Programmers do a lot of good testing. - Yes I agree. None of the above are in conflict with my conjecture. Programming or writing software automates things that would be expensive or hard to do otherwise. Our software might also be faster or less error prone at doing whatever it replaces. It may achieve or enable something that couldn't be done before the software was employed. Writing software involves overcoming and working around constraints to achieve improvement. That is, looking for ways to bypass limitations imposed by external factors or limitations in the tools we use. For example, coping with a high latency internet connection, legacy code or poor quality inputs. A programmer might say they were taking advantage of the technologies’