Željko Filipin's Blog on Software and Testing

A few days ago it was exactly 5 years since I started working as a software tester. I planned to publish this on the very date, but life happened.

What happened in the last five years? Am I smarter? Or just older? Let’s find out.

Personal

In the last five years I have upgraded LifeOS™ from 26.0 to 31.0, upgraded Girlfriend 5.0 application to Wife 4.0 and installed Son 1.5. I do not use DistanceRunning application so much any more, but I do my best. Drums 1.0 are lost somewhere and Guitar 1.0 is mainly collecting digital dust. No so sure about smarter, but definitely older.

Smarter vs. Older – 0:1

Professional

Five years ago I had a job I did not like. I thought software (programming to be precise) is so cool, and I wished I could develop it for a living. No luck back then.

I still think software is lots of fun, and I live in code as much as I can. But, now I think software testing is even cooler, and I know I was born to be a tester. Not only do I have a job I would do even if I did not have to work, but I get to work from home. A dream I had since I was just a little kid.

Smarter vs. Older – 1:1

Programming Languages

My BASIC, FORTRAN and PHP skills declined a bit in the last five years, but I am sure I would be up and running in minutes if I ever needed them. (Looks like I had a thing for UPPERCASE languages back then.)
I have picked up some Ruby and Watir in the last few years, and I even made it to the Watir core team! Not bad for a simple tester from Croatia, right?!

Smarter vs. Older – 2:1

Web

Five years ago, I had a crappy site with a crappy URL. (In Croatian only. Some stuff is missing because it is archive.org snapshot, but it did not look much better anyway.)
Today, I am all over the place. (I even have a place where I try to aggregate my web presence.) I have a great site with great URL. Five years ago podcasts just started to appear, now I have one.

Smarter vs. Older – 3:1

Watir

I already mentioned Watir, a tool that I use almost every day, and it makes my life much easier. Big portion of this site is dedicated to it. I like it so much I talk about it to anybody that would listen. I even flew across the ocean to meet with people that like Watir.

Conclusion

It really takes a lot of time to write a blog post. No wonder I do not write so much.

Let’s take a look at the final score:

Smarter vs. Older – 3:1

Looks like Smarter won. Maybe another jury would vote differently.

If you remember only one thing from this post, I hope it will be the title:

Test like you do not need the money.