A continual debate on the agile-testing mailing list is to what degree testers think differently than programmers and are therefore able to find bugs that programmers won’t. Without ever really resolving that question, the conversation usually moves onto whether the mental differences are innate or learnable.I myself have no fixed opinion on the matter. That’s [...]

Before the end of our last Google Test Automation Conference in August 2007, we were already getting questions from participants and blog readers wondering about the next conference. Now we can tell you when and where that will happen (drum roll please)... the 2008 Test Automation Conference will be held October 23 and 24 in Seattle. More details will be coming shortly...

I'm not sure why it is called hackontest, nor am I sure why the definition of 'hacker' used on their website highlights the 'clever programmer' aspect of its origins but ignores the 'learning programming by trial and error' (i.e. not necessarily knowing about designing for maintainability and other such things)...

But, they have a goal to advance one or more open source tools by having a day dedicated to adding new features to open source tools...

The Swiss Open Systems User Group /ch/open organizes the first international Hackontest sponsored by Google as part of informatica08, the Swiss year of computer science 2008. Hackontest is a 24-hour programming competition of three teams of different open source projects. Its goals are to enhance popular Free Software projects according to user needs and to demonstrate to the public how enthusiastically open source software is being developed.

Interested in proposing a project? Interested in voting for features? Interested in competing for the USD 8500 prize?

Well - if you are, check out the Hackontest website for more info...

“I’m not Evil, I’m Necessary.”