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Sbarber's blog

Testing vs. Checking ... my 2 cents.

context-driven testing | functional testing | general software testing | heuristics | people issues | perspectives

I was pleased to see Michael Bolton's series on Testing vs. Checking. If you haven't been following, what I consider to be the central thread of the topic (and the unfortunately inevitable fallout that seems to happen in "testerland" almost any time someone says something that makes sense).

From Michael:

From James Bach:

From Scott Barber:

Thorkil Sonne: Recruit Autistics

general software testing | industry recognition | other online resources | people issues | perspectives

Wired.com ran their smart list today. If you aren't familiar with it or don't care, at least check out the great press fellow software tester, entrepreneur, and social innovator Thorkil Sonne is getting for Specialisterne here:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist_sonne

Attention Vendors and Service Providers

Attend CAST

 

The 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2009

Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13-16, 2009

Serving Our Stakeholders

If your company sells tools, training, or services related to software testing, CAST is the one conference you won't want to cut out of your budget. For a small fraction of the cost of many other conferences you can network with influencers and decision makers, you can become known as a company that really cares about testing and testers (as opposed to a company that simply found a way to make money off of software testing), and you can get a glimpse into where testing is headed in the future.

CAST 2009 Early Bird Rates Extended until May 1

books | context-driven testing | events | functional testing | general software testing | industry recognition | metaphors | non-functional testing | other online resources | people issues | perspectives | project management | test analysis | test management | usability testing

Attend CAST

The 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2009

Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13-16, 2009

Serving Our Stakeholders

Opening Keynote by: Dr. Jonathan Koomey

Closing Keynote by: Robert Sabourin & Tim Coulter

Invited Speakers: Mike Dwyer and Kevin Brennan

CAST 2009 Early Bird Rates Extended until May 1

books | context-driven testing | events | functional testing | general software testing | industry recognition | metaphors | non-functional testing | other online resources | people issues | perspectives | project management | test analysis | test management | usability testing

Attend CAST

The 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2009

Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13-16, 2009

Serving Our Stakeholders

Opening Keynote by: Dr. Jonathan Koomey

Closing Keynote by: Robert Sabourin & Tim Coulter

Invited Speakers: Mike Dwyer and Kevin Brennan

A misleading benchmark...

general software testing | metaphors | other online resources | patterns | people issues | performance testing | perspectives | project management | test analysis | test management

No further commentary needed.

Dilbert.com

--
Scott Barber
President & Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.

Thoughts on Performance Testing w/o "Tools"

I was recently asked the following question via the "Ask The Expert" feature of SearchSoftwareQuality.com.

How can we conduct performance testing, stress testing, and load testing of a Web application manually without using any tools?

My commentary is reproduced below -- you'll have to click through to see my actual recommendations.

Latest Column -- The controversy surrounding the schools of software testing

functional testing | general software testing | industry recognition | other online resources | perspectives

My latest column...

Periodically, discussions break out in various software testing communities around the Web regarding the schools of software testing.

As I write this, there are discussions going in SQAForums, on the Software-Testing Yahoo! group, and various blogs that (at least up to the time I started writing this piece) reside on or are fed to Testing Reflections. In principle, I'm always pleased when these discussions break out. The point of identifying the schools in the first place was to increase the overall awareness of the diversity in ideologies, practices, and values (i.e. schools of thought) in our field and to stimulate discussion about the situational pros and cons of each. That said, the discussions that actually take place tend to drift off in one or more directions that end up being disappointing, unnecessarily confrontational, and generally not useful.

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