I want to follow up on what I said about discipline in yesterday's post. I said that discipline is "motivation without reason." I stand by that, as far as it goes, but there's more to discipline than … [Read more...] about Self-Discipline Redux
Methodology Debates: Traps and Transformations
(This article is adapted from work I did with Johanna Rothman, at the 1st Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference. It's never been widely published, so here you go.) As a context-driven testing … [Read more...] about Methodology Debates: Traps and Transformations
Collegiality
Recently I posted a sort-of attack on Jim Pensyl, who had posted a sort-of attack on my community. Then an interesting thing happened. He withdrew his blog post and called me on the phone. That was … [Read more...] about Collegiality
The Future Will Need Us to Reboot It
I've been reading a bit about the Technological Singularity. It's an interesting and chilling idea conceived by people who aren't testers. It goes like this: the progress of technology is increasing … [Read more...] about The Future Will Need Us to Reboot It
Terminologizing and Danger Words
I just read this on another blog: "Regression testing is usually seen as the poorer cousin of 'proper' domain-abstracted assertion-based testing. Often rightly so!" In twenty years of doing … [Read more...] about Terminologizing and Danger Words
Unambiguous Definition
I found this gem in the FDA Glossary of Computerized System and Software Development Terminology: "unambiguous. (1) Not having two or more possible meanings. (2) Not susceptible to different … [Read more...] about Unambiguous Definition
Sapient Processes
Have you ever done something manually? Have you ever tried to automate it? Did you successfully automate what you were doing? If you answered yes for any of these questions, then I'm afraid I'm being … [Read more...] about Sapient Processes
Confused Methodology Talk #1
This posting by Corey Goldberg illustrates an interesting and all too common kind of confusion people get into when discussing methods and practices. It's worth pondering. On SQAForums, someone … [Read more...] about Confused Methodology Talk #1
“Mipping”: A Strategy for Reporting Iffy Bugs
When I first joined ST Labs, years ago, we faced a dilemma. We had clients telling us what kind of bugs we should not report. "Don't worry about the installer. Don't report bugs on that. We have that … [Read more...] about “Mipping”: A Strategy for Reporting Iffy Bugs
Francis Bacon’s New Organon
It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried. This reminds me of that … [Read more...] about Francis Bacon’s New Organon