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.

• Michael J. Hunter
• Jonathan Kohl
• Elisabeth Hendrickson
• Cem Kaner
• Brian Marick
• Bret Pettichord
• James Bach
• Michael Bolton (not so sure about him)

I tagged them as tester at my delicious account (del.icio.us/zeljko.filipin/tester). I will be adding more, as I find more images. If you are a tester, or you have found images of other testers, leave a link to image in comments.

This little program lets you generate large volumes of random, custom data for use in testing software.

Looks good. I will try it and write more about it if I find some inspiration (and time).

I usually send error reports (especially when all I have to do is click a button), but there is usually no response. The exception is Arachno Ruby IDE, but that is another story.

This morning, I was really (pleasantly) surprised when I found this in my inbox (posted with permission):

It’s a bug in Subversion when using the neon 0.26.2 library. I’m currently working with the Subversion guys on a fix for this. In the meantime, either deactivate SSPI authentication on the server or downgrade to TSVN 1.4.0. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Stefan

--
       ___       "De Chelonian Mobile"
  oo  // \\      TortoiseSVN
(_,\/ \_/ \     The coolest Interface to
   \ \_/_\_/>    (Sub)Version Control
   /_/   \_\     http://tortoisesvn.net


Please notice the turtle in the signature, I really worked hard to reproduce it as in original, but with limited succes (I used SimpleCode).

Not only did I get the response, but there was also two workarounds for my problem. I do not have access to servers, and I have already downgraded to 1.4.0, but it was nice of him to let me know. Actually, after he gave me permission to post his response, he (once more) apologized for not having a fix “because we lack a test environment with a windows domain”. 1.4.0 works fine for me, I upgraded by mistake (that is also another story), so as far as I am concerned, they can take their time. Also, I will surely send them all error reports from now on.

If you treat your users with respect, they will help you make better software.

What matters is – that bug was open for over a two years.

At that time, I just have read Joel Spolsky’s The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code. There is question: “Do you fix bugs before writing new code?” No. To be honest, we did not have a feature freeze for a while.

Isn’t it demotivating to know that bug that you have reported would not be looked at for a while. When will it be resolved? Better not to think about it. I pointed that to my developer, and he promised that he would do his best.

Since then, he was closing many bugs. Just this morning, he said that he has resolved all bugs with priorities 1, 2 and 3 (showstopper, critical and major). I immediately checked our bug tracking software (all testers know that developers cannot be trusted ). Then, I have built the latest version of our application and verified that all bugs are resolved.

There are still over one hundred open bugs, but they are all minor and trivial (priorities 4 and 5). I think that we did not have this situation since I started working here. Over two years.

I have a strange feeling now. I am so motivated to find new bugs. I have noticed some strange behaviour in our application, but I did not have time to look into it. Until know.

There is always one more bug*.

The last paragraph:

If you really need a simple number to use to rank your testers, use a random number generator. It is fairer than bug counting, it probably creates less political infighting, and it might be more accurate.

Brian Marick mentioned it at agile-testing@yahoogroups.com.

We use only the first five. I do not remember when I reported a bug with severity six or seven.

1. Showstopper – blocks development and/or testing work, production could not run
2. Critical – crashes, loss of data, major memory leaks
3. Major – major loss of function
4. Minor – minor loss of function; other problem where easy workaround exists
5. Trivial – cosmetic issue like typo, misaligned images, and similar
6. Fix if time – super-low priority
7. Don’t Fix

The Basics of Bug Tracking
Top Ten Tips for Bug Tracking

• Pretend you’re writing a bug – it’s pretty much the same
• Assume that the person following your test case only has basic familiarity with the product. For example:
  • “Bring up the New Calendar Wizard” – This is too vague.
  • “Launch the New Calendar Dialog (by either double clicking calendar list, File->New Calendar or right clicking calendar list).” – This is much better.
• Be fairly specific with the expected results
  • “It worked” – Once again, too vague.
  • “The event was created on the proper day; The event had the proper color” – This is great.
• Keep list of steps and expected results as simple as possible.
• You don’t need to detail every click unless it’s an important part of the testcase.
  • Click on the name text box; enter a name. Click on Color drop down, pick red.– This is a little much
  • Give the calendar a name, assign it a color. –This is much better.

Christopher McMahon mentioned this at agile-testing@yahoogroups.com.

You are better suited to be an SDE if

- you like to get really deep in one technology space for long stretches
- you don’t stop until you write the perfect algorithm, or the most elegant code

You are better suited to be an SDET if

- You like system integration type work:
—you take the technology that this team did, make use of it and tie it to this other piece of technology, etc.

- You may have been a TA and graded other peoples code, or were the guy in group projects who enjoyed and was good at poking holes in other peoples designs

- You have strong big picture thinking, and are focusing your energy on solving the whole problem.
—You find yourself coming up with “good enough” solutions to problems. Your solutions may or may not be elegant or perfect, but you are happy with it and you’ve moved on to the next part of the problem.

Kako saznati što sve te čudne skraćenice u tekstu znače (SDE, SDET, PM, OM…)? Upiši u Google:

site:microsoft.com SDE

SDE – Software Design Engineer – programer
SDET- Software Design Engineer in Test – tester