Models are typically the basis of all testing. We either model behavior based on specifications, etc and create scripts that are run once the software is developed, or we explore models interactively with exploratory testing. Models can create strange misunderstandings.

I worked in and ran polling places in Australia for many years. One of the challenges is getting polling staff familiar with their tasks and responsibilities before polling starts, so every voter can be processed correctly. This was evidently not the case at a polling place in Chicago, during the recent American primaries.

Pairing with developers yesterday on repackaging their classes (on my advice, they started with just one .NET assembly with everything in it, and are repackaging to optimise the component architecture as the code evolves). Our aim was to break the one assembly into at least two smaller assemblies, with optimal cohesion and minimal coupling between them.

I suggested we use NDepend to help us visualise the dependencies between the classes. To be fair, the tool gets us some of the way there by producing a dependency diagram of the existing classes. We printed this off and drew lines on the page to denote potential package boundaries.

I write notes while I test software. I was concerned that writing this might not be interesting to other testers but when I think about people that might be new to testing, I thought write this, share it. Also I know I enjoy when other experienced testers write specifics about what they do, how they do things, and why. I was happy to see a recent post from Bret about his writing.

Thinking more about the topic, I've realized writing about notetaking is difficult for me. One reason is that my notetaking depends on the situation I'm in. But in an effort to avoid being elusive and to try to share with other testers, I thought I would try to share specifics on the recordings that I make while testing.

HL Arledge, the Certified Scrum Master who accused me of believing that Scrum is just "Snake Oil" (which I didn't, honest - you're thinking of Six Sigma) then goes on to refer to Mike Vizdos' web site as "Mike's Implementing Scum site" in his latest textual debacle, which is surely more insulting than calling it Snake Oil!

In the context of an XP-style Story/Acceptance Test Driven Development process, that uses exploratory testing to generation intra-iteration feedback... The question “how do we know we are done” is often asked and I'm not sure I always give or get the best answer. One of the problems is that there is so much context... so, here's one way you might know (based on my better experiences)...

That sweet check-in...

Jason Gorman wrote a humorous yet thought provoking post, likening SCRUM to a virus.

Mucho controversio has followed...

Apparently some consider this insulting.

Should marketing folk be insulted and offended by the idea of viral marketing? Of course not... viral marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing on the planet... in fact if you create a campaign that spreads virally, you consider that a success! So, why would anyone be insulted by the idea that Scrum is viral? Please!!!!!!

Sending HTTP Requests from a C# program seems unnecessarily hard.  I wrote a small helper class to deal with sending and timing GET requests:
http://www.goldb.org/httpgetcsharp.html

You use it like this:

 public class Program { static void Main(string[] args)
{ HTTPGet req = new HTTPGet(); req.Request("http://www.google.com"); Console.WriteLine(req.StatusLine);