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Software development is in the Doldrums

"Don't get off the boat." "Seriously, never get off the boat," The instructor said, leaning forward and looking at each of us in turn. "But surely if it's sinking..." We reply, somewhat confused and slightly incredulous. We've seen Titanic, we think to ourselves, we know how this sea survival stuff works... "OK" He concedes, If things get really bad, "Get on the life raft if you can step- up from the boat to the life raft". "But, But... the yacht is like 37ft long, Do we want to wait until that whole boat is lower than the life-raft? When less than 1ft of the yacht is above the surface? Meanwhile all the time the life raft is just there... floating happily alongside." "Pretty much, yes," he said nodding. The movie Apocalypse Now speaks the truth. That was about 15 years ago. Not much has changed since. The reasons are manifold. Firstly, the yacht is a decent shelter. The thin plastic ...

A h̶i̶t̶c̶h̶h̶i̶k̶e̶r̶'s̶ software tester's guide to randomised testing - Part 2

How would test a water sac? (Wow there, calm that tester brain... I know what you are thinking, Whats it used for? Who / what uses it? how long does it need to last? Does the temperature of the water matter?  Is it single use? etc. But let's assume a generic hiking or camping water sac for now) I'm guessing one of your suggestions includes filling it with water, shaking it a bit and checking for leaks. Seems kind of obvious right? but when it comes to software, we often do away with old-fashioned techniques such as filling something up and looking at it. Where's the machine learning test algorithm? Call this a BDD scenario? Can Selenium check for H₂0? I have to run this past the B.A... This is your software. We can treat randomly generated test data and inputs in much the same way as water . Data files or other inputs like user interactions are the ever-moving parts of our applications. Think about it, the code is entirely static - it's the state or data tha...

A h̶i̶t̶c̶h̶h̶i̶k̶e̶r̶'s̶ software tester's guide to randomised testing - Part 1

Mostly Harmless, I've talked and written about randomisation as a technique in software testing several times over the last few years. It's great to see people's eyes light up when they grok the concept and its potential.  The idea that they can create random test data on the fly and pour this into the app step back and see what happens is exciting to people looking to find new blockers on their apps path to reliability. But it's not long before a cloud appears in their sunny demeanour and they start to conceive of the possible pitfalls. Here are a few tips on how to avert the common apparent blockers. (Part 1) A good motto for software testing, as well as pan-galactic hitchhiking. Problem: I've created loads of random numbers as input data, but how will I know the answer the software returns, is correct? - Do I have to re-implement the whole app logic in my test code? Do you remember going to the fun-fair as a kid? Or maybe you recall tak...

How did you find that bug? Are we sitting comfortably, then I'll begin.

How did you find that bug? - They asked with a sort of puzzled " he dun't thunk like uz " look on their faces. An expression that suggested they were unsure whether to commend the discovery or gather their pitchforks and organise a well overdue witch burning. Likewise, I now knew why they needed me. The team members were genuinely hard working people trying to build something new and exciting. But they lacked one thing, someone exploring & asking questions - trying to find out new things about their application. Exploring is literally a step into the unknown, and that can be uncomfortable for those not experienced in how to do it well. Exploring is literally a step into the unknown. So how did I find that bug? It's easy to tell a story of how I tried that particular input value because... Paragraph 3 of v4.6 of the requirements document stated that the user shall indeed on occasion X given input Y in Chrome v62 do... Or spout some other overly verb...

Was there a test for that? No, and there shouldn't be.

The release shipped. For a while, the team felt good. The work was done, the team had achieved something, and that was rewarding.  Unfortunately for the team, it wasn't long before a problem was found. The Product Owner wasn't happy and had asked was going on down there in the galley, do we need new coders? Better ones? Hipster coders? The release shipped... After an investigation, some blushes, raised eyebrows and a couple of "Oh... Yeeeah's" they found the cause. A confusion had collided with a bodge, and the result was a mess. Should they write an automated - test for this problem?  An embarrassing mistake or a misstep can make us feel we have to do something . An action greater than a fix is needed. A penitance needs to be performed, to redeem ourselves, to make us right again. Sometimes the penitence is best spent adding a test for that issue. Especially if writing that test has a low cost, the frequency of the pr...

Manumation, the worst best practice.

There is a pattern I see with many clients, often enough that I sought out a word to describe it: Manumation, A sort of well-meaning automation that usually requires frequent, extensive and expensive intervention to keep it 'working'. You have probably seen it, the build server that needs a prod and a restart 'when things get a bit busy'. Or a deployment tool that, 'gets confused' and a 'test suite' that just needs another run or three. The cause can be any number of the usual suspects - a corporate standard tool warped 5 ways to make it fit what your team needs. A one-off script 'that manager' decided was an investment and needed to be re-used... A well-intended attempt to 'automate all the things' that achieved the opposite. They result in a manually intensive - automated process, where your team is like a character in the movie Metropolis, fighting with levers all day, just to keep the lights on upstairs. Manual-automation, manu...

Scatter guns and muskets.

Many, Many years ago I worked at a startup called Lastminute.com (a European online travel company, back when a travel company didn't  have to be online). For a while, I worked in what would now be described as a 'DevOps' team. A group of technical people with both programming and operational skills. I was in a hybrid development/operations role, where I spent my time investigating and remedying production issues using my development, investigative and still nascent testing skills. It was a hectic job working long hours away from home. Finding myself overloaded with work, I quickly learned to be a little ruthless with my time when trying to figure out what was broken and what needed to be fixed. One skill I picked up, was being able to distinguish whether I was researching a bug  or trying to find a new bug. When researching , I would be changing one thing or removing something (etc) and seeing if that made the issue better or worse. When lookin...