Notes on testing, automation, and software craft.
This is the story behind the VW emissions scandal, that so far has cost the company over $33bn. We look into the technology issues VW faced and the investigations that uncovered the problem. The MP3 (Audio) file is available here. more »
When I’m debugging a complex system, I’m constantly looking for patterns. I just ran this test code... What did I see in the log? I just processed a metric $^&\ load of data, did our memory footprint blip? I’m probably using every freedom unit of screen space to tail logs, run a… more »
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… more »
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… more »
A while back, I sat in on a planning meeting. Many planning meetings slide awkwardly into a sort of ad hoc technical analysis discussion, and this was no exception. With a little prompting, the team started to draw up what they wanted to build on a whiteboard. The picture spoke… more »
Thank you to the colleague/customer/product owner, who found the bug I missed. That oversight, was (at least in part) my mistake. I've been thinking about what happened and what that means to me and my team. I'm happy you told me about the issue you found, because you... 1)… more »
An amused but slightly exasperated developer once turned to me and said "I not only have to get all the features correct, I have to get the errors correct too!". He was referring to the need to implement graceful and useful failure behaviour for his application. Rather than… more »
I now cover this issue in more detail in my podcast! The EPA (The US government's Environmental Protection Agency) recently issued Notice of Violations regarding the emissions from Volkswagen cars. Volkswagen is actually a group of brands, therefore the Notice affects other cars… more »
When I have a spare moment, I usually try and think about how to test something. In fact thats not true, what I do is actually test something. It might be an app on my phone, an online tool, parking ticket machine or search engine. Usually it is what ever is to hand, at the… more »
We are fighting an invincible opponent. The legions of bugs in our software far outnumber our attempts to find them all. Even the simplest of software releases, inevitably contains a 5th column of hidden pre existing bugs or quirks that combined with our changes could strike at… more »