Software Tasting

Mar 242008

The Black Box Testing Song

cem kaner, james bach, song 2 Responses »

Cem Kaner and James Bach presented a course on Black Box Software Testing that I took circa 2003. I performed this song, Black Box, to wrap up the training. The reference to “underwear and dirty socks”, besides making a pleasant rhyme with “black box”, refers to Cem’s comment that once you get to know a particular developer’s personal developmental hygiene, you can start rummaging around their code looking for their characteristic errors – their dirty laundry, as it were. We spent a little time learning to make test data that is easy to grow to gigantic size and then shrink as needed, and how to recognize when this type of attack might be useful. We also discussed how to turn any statement about the software into a testable requirement, including marketing claims, hence the comment about the Marketing Department, and spent quite a bit of time going over good ways to review specification documents for ambiguity and raise questions that may save confusion later on. Especially if the developers are as frazzled as the ones in the song.

The most important lessons that I learned, though were these: when in doubt, start testing. And notice when you are running across the same bugs as before, stop retracing your own footsteps and try something new. I tried to capture these ideas in the song as well.

I had a lot of fun writing and recording this, and I hope you enjoy it. In case you couldn’t quite tell, it was ripped off from “Smooth” by Rob Thomas and Santana. See the page about it on the Audible Stuff blog for more music notes.

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Feb 232008

Testing is … playing on the o-line

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(Warning: This post is about some intricacies of American football. Bail out now.) I read “The Hidden Game of Football”, and needless to say, I had an epiphany. Software testing is … playing on the offensive line.

O-linemen are notoriously difficult to grade in terms of how good they are. The NFL keeps only one stat: sacks against. Their performance is entirely dependent on the play of their linemates and the skill with which the rest of the offense operates.

The lineman’s objective is to enable the “skill players” to maneuver the football downfield in the face of an oncoming rush. They do so by impeding the progress of the defensive players, intercepting and diverting them before they can disrupt the flow of play.

O-lines learn a “scheme”, a set of principles for how to coordinate their efforts, that tells them generally how to block on each play. As each play unfolds, the actual maneuvers they make and techniques they employ depend on the actions of the defenders they face in real time.

Some schemes require fast o-linemen, others call for big guys. Sometimes a player is so amazingly great at one particular thing that the scheme itself is altered to accommodate his talent. Sometimes the scheme confers such a competitive advantage that other teams consider it “cheating” and declare themselves above using it.

It’s easy to ignore line play when watching and talking about football.

Unless you play it too.

Keep an eye out for the passrush of Bias, Complacency, Habit, and Hubris! The Four Horsemen of the Dev-ocalypse!

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Jan 142008

Testing is … raking leaves

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I had to rake a lot of leaves in the back yard last weekend, and as I was raking, raking, making many muddy piles, I had an epiphany. Software testing is … raking leaves.

If there are lots of leaves, you can get most of them without digging too deeply and getting your rake all clogged up, just by scraping the top layer. Leave the rest for later, if that’s your style.

You can turn a big ol’ yard into a manageable series of “rake areas” by picking some landmarks, say a few trees and the sandbox, spaced somewhat equidistant through the yard, and raking all the leaves between these into a pile, then the leaves between these into another pile, etc.

Once you get past the top layer, the leaves are wet, and your rake gets caught up in the roots and stuff. If you’re just going for max bags o’ leaves per hour of raking, you’ll avoid that kind of work.

But if your wife is like mine, you quickly understand that the kids need to play on solid ground, so you have to get in there and dig ‘em out, which takes more work, and a more discerning eye to judge how well you did.

I get into a rhythm of raking leaves while playing with the kids: push the kids on the swing, then when they’re swinging real good, go and rake a bag of leaves. By the time I’m done with the bag, they’re screaming for another push. Push ‘em, rake ‘em. Push ‘em, rake ‘em. They seem resistant to learning how to pump themselves higher on the swings, but I don’t mind – it’s “dad security”.

And of course – next time the trees put out a release, I get to do it again.

Second time, though, should be easier.

See? It’s uncanny.

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Jan 012008

I’m Gonna Be a Rapid Tester Someday

james bach, rapid testing, satisfice, song 6 Responses »

Welcome to my testing blog, offering an interesting, perhaps funny, perhaps entertaining, perhaps thoughtful view of my profession of software testing.

To kick this blog off right, I offer you Rapid Tester, a song about a tester at wit’s end about how to test all the stuff that he’s expected to test, and how the Rapid Testing course gave him hope that he could at least do a defensibly reasonable job given what he has to work with.

I this wrote on the occasion of attending my first RST class at James Bach’s Satisfice world headquarters in Front Royal, VA. I’ve edited it slightly since then as my understanding of the material has grown, but the essence remains the same. It borrows pretty much everything from Steve Earle’s beautiful song “Someday”.

Enjoy the song. Did you change your opinion of yourself or your job because of the RST course or others like it?

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The Black Box Testing Song

Testing is … playing on the o-line

Testing is … raking leaves

I’m Gonna Be a Rapid Tester Someday

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Geordie Keitt

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