Archive for category Personal

Job Description

I was reading a job position offering these days for a “QA engineer“.
There was the usual mumbo jumbo of the required traits (BSC in computer science or equivalent“, “Worked directly with R&D department) and advantage points (“General knowledge of at least one mainstream (programming) language“), and one of the requirements lines said “Testing methodologies: STD, STP“.
I got curious to know what these methodologies are and what the TLA mean, so I called the company offering the job: Read the rest of this entry »

On certified testers and being certifiable, and on non native english speakers :)

I like the SQE.
SQE brings columns by Michael Bolton almost monthly on the Better Magazine. They also arrange the nice STAR conferences (hadn’t the opportunity to participate yet, but I will eventually) and store a large number of articles online of all testing flavors.

Today morning I was greeted by an Email from SQE: The subject read “Are you certifiable?“.
My first reaction was to discuss the term. If I am certifiable? I? In my mind, I was arguing whether a person can be considered certifiable or maybe the topic of certification is the one certifiable.
As in “Software Testing is (or not) a certifiable topic” against “Johnny is a certifiable (or not) software tester”.

I was puzzled over the confusing choice of words:

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Testing Year! Yet again!

This is the third Happy New testing Year, after this one and this one. 🙂
This is quite exciting, three new years means two full years!

Let’s recapitulate my 2008 blogging activity:

Hope this next year comes with at least 12 posts, all of them useful.
Gotta start thinking on January’s post…

Set the butterflies free – now I am collecting quotes

I’ve started a quote collection. Many times I want to quote someone but I just don’t remember how exactly the phrase was. Or remember the quote but am not certain on the source…

I am fond of quoting.
Not sure why, but I like to quote. I guess it gives some legitimating to what I am saying. 🙂

So, the quote collection is available at this address: http://testing.gershon.info/quote-collection/. It will grow slowly, please check it regularly.

Happy New Testing Year Again! What? Too late?

When I started the blog, I planned on at least one post per month.
I managed pretty well, with 15 posts in a year, plus a handfull of draft wanderings that maybe will se the light someday…

But then the new year came and everything wreaked havoc. 🙁
I had hosting issues (of which I am to blame for most) and then had to make a new and different account and restore everything, from the WordPress system to the posts databases, including tweaking the code to look for everything in the new locations. Too much work, too little coffee.

So that’s the reason.
And new year is coming, this time, in April :).

Happy New Testing Year, then!
Let’s see if I can continue with the post a month this time 🙂

Bug of This Time!

One of the sections I want to have in this blog, is a list of cool bugs and a review on the bug report.
I’ll take a bug report out of some bugzilla list, like the Mozilla or the OpenOffice, explain the bug and review the bug description.
My aim is to learn cool techniques and ideas on bug reporting, and also to try to spot bad patterns and poor descriptions.

Wait! Should not this section be called “Bug of the Month“, or “of the Week“? No, no. I do not want to limit myself to just one bug per period. Neither I want to commit to bring a bug every week… So it’s the “Bug of this Time“! 🙂


 

At “This Time”, instead of listing a bug found elsewhere, I’ll describe a ‘Privacy Bug’ I once found in the printer of a company I worked for.They had some Xerox printers that performed as Fax as well.

In some (most) of the machines, when you wanted to print a Transmission Report on a delivered fax, you had to drill-down on the printers’ menu, and press the “Transmission Report” option. Send your fax, and after success, a neat report, with a reduced image of the first page of the fax sent is printed out. Cool.

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Testing Year!

This time I could not miss it.
I’ve been planning this journal for months. Even after I had the layout and graphics done, and had all the major sections figured out, starting to write content was quite hard.
I began making a list of topics that would interest you and me, even drafted a handfull of posts(!) — and waited for the next-week/next-month/next-round-date to start publishing text. The angels of procrastination as guiding star…

This time I could not miss it.
First day of the year — a very round date to start.
My ‘dieta’ can wait, in 2007 I am writting a blog on Software Testing!

Why would you do this? Don’t you have enough things to do?“, you would ask, and I would understand then that you’ve been talking to my wife and/or my boss :).
Well, I am doing it for you and the world, and for me. I want to clarify to myself what I think, and lapidate my philosophies. I also passion to teach and discourse, so this is a very good opportunity to be my own teacher of testing and of writing. If you or others can benefit from these as well, even better!
((Funny thing is, the posts are password protected, because I probably have to ask permission to my employer before publishing this. So I am writing to myself meanwhile… I will be able to measure my advance throughout the years, yuhuu!))

In the next few posts, I’ll present a bit of what I do, and of what I will cover on the journal.

Be my guest;
 – Let me know your Testing Thoughts!