Interactive Fiction Vignette

I'm a long-time fan of Interactive Fiction and when I heard about http://playfic.com , I was eager to try my hand at building a game.

In the days that I've been learning about writing the code for the game, I've come up with this little vignette.

http://robert.watkins.net/adayinqa/play.html

Let me know what you think!

On a side note, there are some interesting debugging and testing tools that come with the Windows and Mac versions of the editors. I'll be digging into them and hopefully providing some information on them here.

Taylor Ward from TEKsystems Is Filling a QA Position in OKC

Here is another opportunity for QA work in Oklahoma City, If you are interested, see Taylor's information below.


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TEKsystems® is the nation’s leading technology staffing and services company. Combining a proven track record of superior performance, a quality-focused approach to service delivery, and the highest-caliber technical professionals in the market, TEKsystems helps our clients successfully plan, build, and run their critical technology initiatives.


With more than 25 years of experience, we annually deploy 70,000 technical professionals from 90 locations throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Our capabilities include IT and communications staff augmentation and direct placement services; managed, project-based, and outsourced applications and infrastructure services; education services; and comprehensive workforce management solutions.

I am currently working for TEKsystems and I am looking to network with any and all IT professionals. I am a recruiter focusing primarily in the area of Applications. My goal is to provide our customers with the best technical talent in the OKC area. Please feel free to reach out to me at either of the numbers listed.Taylor WardTEKsystemsW: 405-254-9557C: 405-365-2793taward@teksystems.com

Our available opportunity:
TEKsystems is looking for a quality assurance professional who has 4+ years of QA experience to help spearhead their new testing department. Currently their team of 10-15 developers, the BA and the customer are responsible for testing the product. They want to separate testing into its own department. For now this candidate would be the only member of the testing team, therefore they are looking for someone who has a solid understanding of testing from conception to completion. Experience with test plans, test cases and test scripts needed. The qualified candidate would also have knowledge or experience in release management. This person will be responsible for functional testing, regression testing, release management/production control, and will eventually help them set up an automated testing environment. If interested please contact Taylor Ward at TEKsystems, 405-254-9557.

iFAQ - Infrequently Asked Questions

Today I was organizing test cases and was considering two alternatives. Ultimately, I decided on one course of action, but then thought. Am I going to remember why I chose A over B?

Where do you keep track of these 'Infrequently Asked Questions'? How often do you wish you had a place where you could look this up?

Do you feel like this some days...

I saw this today and have felt this way in the past... What could be done to change this?

http://www.lolhome.com/funny-picture-9979526995.html

Are You a QA Chef? (Or Do You Use Recipes?)

QA Chef
This type of person has done this work for so long, they 'just know' what is right. They take pride in being able to make adjustments to their souffle based on weather conditions. They know how much of any one ingredient to add using a combination of sight, smell and a bit of how they are feeling that day.

Taken to an extreme, they would be hard-pressed to provide an accurate recipe for someone else to follow. They also may be completely unable to cook anything outside their own kitchen.

Recipe Follower
This type of person is rule-bound. The recipe may have been used many times before, but the act of following it makes the outcome predictable.  There may be favorite recipes, but recipes are always used, even if they have to make one.

Taken to an extreme, they cannot deal with changes to context. If a new oven cooks differently, they have trouble adapting. If some ingredient is no longer available, they cannot find a suitable replacement.

So What?
How often are you the Chef? or the Recipe Follower? What are the benefits you see? And what pains do you experience? Could you change your approach and get a better outcome?

Test Case Management Software - A look at RTH, TestLink, Testopia

In looking for an alternative to a commercial application, I've been looking at open source alternative for test case management software.

RTH 
The documentation for this product is incomplete and the user experience is not great. It appears to work as expected but it’s not always clear what to expect. If this were to be ranked agains Testopia, it would need additional evaluation to rank them, but it does not appear to be as complete as the TestLink option. There was some tweaking needed to get everythign installed.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rth/


TestLinkThis system has relatively good built-in reports and access to data. This system would best be used by those that would use it on a daily basis and is not suitable for occasional users because executing tests and reporting is not very usable. Integration with external bug tracking system requires additional tools to be built or purchased. Overall, this seems to fit our needs best, given our constraints. 
http://www.teamst.org/

Testopia:
While test result tracking 'in flight' is easy to track, test results tracking and anaysis over time will likely require customized reports and possibly customized code. This system would best be used by those that would use it on a daily basis and is not suitable for occasional users because executing tests and reporting is not very usable (or would require lots of customization that may not be supported when upgraded). In some cases, actions performed did not persist between sessions, so it has a sense of being unreliable. Installation was difficult.
http://landfill.mozilla.org/testopia2/testopia/doc/Manual.pdf

 Others available, but not considered for my use

• XQUAL  http://www.xqual.com/qa/tools.html - There is a free version that looks good, but since that free version is ad-based, it was not considered for our use.
• Salome TMF - https://wiki.ow2.org/salome-tmf/  - I was not able to get this running after mucking around with it for some time. I didn't go looking for assistance and it may work well, I just don't know.
• Oracle Application Test Suite - This looked promising, but there is a license required, so it wasn't evaluated.

I could go on, but this is a good summary

ISTQB - Certified Tester Foundation Level training in Oklahoma

Randall Rice is a consultant for software testing and other software development processes who provides training worldwide. He is based in the Oklahoma City area and is hoping to schedule another CTFL training session in the area soon.


I took this course before and he does an excellent job at preparing for the certification exam and you'll have fun doing it!


You can find more about the course content here:
http://riceconsulting.com/home/index.php/ISTQB-Software-Tester-Certification/istqb-foundation-level-course-in-software-testing.html



If you are interested, you can contact him in one of many ways
-- Randall W. Rice, CSTE, CSQA, CTAL
Rice Consulting Services, Inc.
405-691-8075
FAX 405-691-1441
Cell 405-401-6469
www.riceconsulting.com
"Test everything. Hold on to the good." I Thessalonians 5:21

Join my newsletter today! http://www.riceconsulting.com/newsletter.htm 

Check out my blog at http://randallrice.blogspot.com

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Twitter - http://twitter.com/rricetester

Happy 5th Birthday iPhone

Steve Jobs announced the iPhone on Jan 9th, 2007. Can you believe it's been five years?

This phone has set a new standard for phone and handheld device usability.

Randy Rice's Software Testing & Quality Blog: Book Review - Making it Big in Software

Randy Rice is an Internationally-known consultant that is local to my area (when he's not traveling). I hope you enjoy his book review.

Randy Rice's Software Testing & Quality Blog: Book Review - Making it Big in Software: There is a great "secret" I tell software professionals. That "secret" is that if you want to rise to the top of your field, it's not that ...

A Tester's Commitment

http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/652

James Bach has a good post on what testers commit to

Here's an excerpt:

I provide a service. You are an important client of that service. I am not satisfied unless you are satisfied.

I am not the gatekeeper of quality. I don’t “own” quality. Shipping a good product is a goal shared by all of us.

I will test your code as soon as I can after you deliver it to me. I know that you need my test results quickly (especially for fixes and new features).

I will strive to test in a way that allows you to be fully productive. I will not be a bottleneck.

I’ll make every reasonable effort to test, even if I have only partial information about the product.

I will learn the product quickly, and make use of that knowledge to test more cleverly.

I will test important things first, and try to find important problems. (I will also report things you might consider unimportant, just in case they turn out to be important after all, but I will spend less time on those.)

I will strive to test in the interests of everyone whose opinions matter, including you, so that you can make better decisions about the product.

I will write clear, concise, thoughtful, and respectful problem reports. (I may make suggestions about design, but I will never presume to be the designer.)

I will let you know how I’m testing, and invite your comments. And I will confer with you about little things you can do to make the product much easier to test.

I invite your special requests, such as if you need me to spot check something for you, help you document something, or run a special kind of test.

I will not carelessly waste your time. Or if I do, I will learn from that mistake.

Bugs and Battleship

I got this link from Peter Hall today, it's a great way to look at different ways we look for bugs.

http://blog.ezyang.com/2011/12/bugs-and-battleships/

Enjoy!

PCMM - Like CMM, but for people

There is lots of evidence that one of the major contributors to a successful software project is the right people with the right skills being motivated to perform well.

SEI has released (nearly 10 years ago) a method for managing this kind of management.

Check it out!

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01mm001.cfm

QA Tester Position in Oklahoma

This is a 6 month contract to hire opportunity. Looking for somebody to start December 12^th but the earlier the better. They are definitely looking to bring somebody on full time. The first project is in Massachusetts and the individual will need to be on site the first 2 weeks. If the person is not in OKC they can work remotely from home and come to OKC once a week. If they are in OKC they will work in the office.

·         Test Designer with Keyword experience preferably someone with web interface experience.

·         DB queries would be a plus as would C#, .NET experience.

·         Automation testing is the biggest requirement

·         Will be using Selenium so if somebody has any experience with Selenium that would be a huge bonus!

Contact Info:

Taylor Brecher

GDH Consulting, Inc.

405-948-9022 Office

405-290-7505 Fax

972-839-1841 Mobile

tbrecher@gdhconsulting.com

www.gdhit.com

Become a fan of GDH Consulting on Facebook

Re-imagining the Test Plan

Some folks got together to discuss the relative lack of utility of most test plans. Their idea is to tie in streams of data (tests, test results, bugs, issues, checkins, etc.) to provide an ongoing look at areas of risk for your application in a visual way.

This is by no means a usable product at the moment. However, the ideas are interesting. Read more here, join the discussion and be a part of this project!

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2011/10/google-test-analytics-now-in-open.html

Being Geek - another book review

I've posted another book review on StickyMinds.com. This one is on 'Being Geek'

http://www.stickyminds.com/s.asp?F=S1362_BOOK_4

Javascript Code Coverage Tool

The Google Testing Blog has an entry on a tool to calculate how much of the javascript on a page has been covered.

Now you can get details on each script on the page and how much is left to test!

http://googletesting.blogspot.com/2011/10/scriptcover-makes-javascript-coverage.html

Time-Life Series on 'Understanding Computers' (circa 1989)

My brother-in-law brought these over for me. They were going to be thrown out at his work and he offered to take them off their hands.

The one that caught my eye was 'The Software Challenge'. It's essentially about Software Engineering and the tools and techniques used in software projects.

At the time, the big idea was CASE tools. Computer-Aided Software Engineering. There's a whole section on that idea as well as testing concepts such as boundary-value testing, positive testing, negative testing, code path coverage and more.

Filters of Experience

Filters are great things, until they aren't...

I use my experience to filter lots of things. For example, I won't get started on optimizing how my email is stored because I've done that and it ultimately takes more time to maintain than I get value out of. Additionally, I will go out of my way to meet the maintenance people in my building because knowing them can quickly get issues fixed when they arise.

This experience I've developed over years has allowed me to see nuances in everyday activities to try to maximize the benefit to me or others.

But these filters of experience also hold me back sometimes. My son had a school project that would take several hours to do and he waited until the last minute to do it. I looked at the clock after dinner the night before the assignment was due and concluded that given my son's available time, he couldn't have finished it and would have to turn it in late. I thought that even if it were done, it wouldn't be done well. I was wrong. While he could have turned in a more polished final product, he did finish it reasonably well and only a little after his normal bedtime.

So if you are new in your career:

• Look for those with experience to see if you can work better
• Don't let that experience hold you back if you have the desire to see it through (even if you end up being wrong to ignore experience, you'll have just built up some of your own)

If you are well established in your career.

• Look to the younger crowd for energy and new possibilities
• Be sure to voice your experience in a way that allows everyone to feel successful. (even if you end up being wrong, it won't be the first time)

What do you do if you need to test a system with little to no documentation?

You need to identify what sources of information exist. The common term is a 'Test Oracle'. The Test Oracles will tell you how the system is supposed to work, but unfortunately, they are known to conflict with each other.

This is an old article, but still very relevant on what forms Test Oracles take and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

http://www.softwarequalitymethods.com/Papers/OracleTax.pdf

 

(thanks Peter for remining me that this site has been too silent for too long)

 

TestAPI for Win32 and .NET applications

I heard about this today and it looks promising... http://testapi.codeplex.com/

According to the site :

"TestApi is a library of test and utility APIs that enables developers and testers to create testing tools and automated tests for .NET and Win32 applications. TestApi provides a set of common test building blocks -- types, data-structures and algorithms -- in a simple, layered, componentized and documented stack."

Post a comment if you have any experience with this.