neill mccarthy's blog

BCS Sigist next week

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:49:50 -0500

So June the 15th, for those that do not follow football, soccer for readers in the USA, is a great oppertunity to meet up with a bunch of testers at the next BCS sigist event in London.
There is a good range of speakers and a nice range of subjects; if I was not off on a Management Training course with the new company I would be heading of there for the day as a great excuse to see how other Pr

WOPR 7 announcement

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:38:44 -0500

[textile] "WOPR7":http://www.performance-workshop.org/content/view/44/86/ has been announced, it will be hosted in the UK, the first in Europe.
I am really quite excited by this, I made my first WOPR this year in April over at the Googleplex in mountainview and came out with some wonderful insights.
Now I have been working on agile projects for a while and was really impressed with Antony Marcano's talk on his experience of doing performance testing on agile projects. Well it is this passion and this powerful new story and set of approaches that can still add value as long as we have a healthy sceptic view of the methodology and keep applying thinking to it.

And another peer conference to apply for.

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 04:09:15 -0500

[Textile]So I have just got back from a "WOPR":http://www.performance-workshop.org/ at the googleplex in CA. Now once more the nice google people are hosting a conference on testing, but this time I do not need to cross the atlantic, which is nice.

A "Call for Papers":http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/04/our-conference-on-automated-testing.html has been raised for an event to happen in September at the London Googleplex for a test automation conference.

Not a peer conference...

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:08:03 -0500

[Textile]
...but as "tool events":http://www.testexpo.co.uk/ go this is actually a good one, if a bit far for "Corey Goldberg's":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/3635 comments to be disproved. There are some potentially interesting talks and going on on testing and on tools, some by vendors and some who do not have the seem interest including one on Exploratory Testing which if "James Lyndsay's":http://www.workroom-productions.com/james.html Jet Lag is not too bad he may attending.

London in June is one of my Favorite places to be...

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 12:55:48 -0500

and now there are another two reasons to add to the list.
James Lyndsay who I have just had the pleasure of spending six days with at WOPR6 at the Googleplex in CA, see [Textile]"Antony Marcano's":http://www.testingreflections.com/tracker/2 rather good write ups on the subject, has organised two rather excellent events:

"Lewt3":http://www.workroom-productions.com/LEWT.html which is the original format that the 3 days of SWOPRS were based on and also a two day "exploratory testing workshop":http://www.workroom-productions.com/TestObsessed.html with "Elisabeth Hendrickson":http://www.qualitytree.com/ who is a wonderful tester and teacher of testing.

SWOPR Day 1 & 2

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 14:13:24 -0500

There will be a fuller write up later this week once it has been checked that the blog will met the IP agreement.So far an excellent event.

Day One was a SWOPR.
Now this was a new event for the WOPR and was based on James Lyndsay's highly successful LEWT format. This involved a series of short talks that ran for ten minutes and either were experienced based or statements of views on if we were reaching a paradigm shift in our performance test practices and the art of the practice.

Interesting.

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 16:28:31 -0500

[textile]

An interesting "press release":http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/005983.html found whilst in the "WOPR":http://www.performance-workshop.org/ lab on performance testing with "AJAX":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX

Well it is kind of refreshing for this level of kind of honesty.

So if the test tool does not work with the technology then let the test tool vendor dictate the technology you use.

Performance Testing Mythology 2

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 05:22:39 -0600

Well [textile]"this":http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-3513_11-6044115.html?tag=search is the reason I guess conferences like "WOPR":http://www.performance-workshop.org/content/view/18/42/ are in existence. So despite the optimism of "Alexander Poldelko's":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/3337 due to an analysts "report":http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,37519,00.html I am not as sure we have reached "the tipping point":http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/ for acceptance of performance engineering as a key element of the SDLC.

Some times I stun even myself.

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 04:45:43 -0600

[textile] Well guess it is nearly time to move up to the video ipod. I took another learning point off "James Bach":http://www.satisfice.com/ and had been using an "ipod":http://blackbox.cs.fit.edu/blog/james/archives/000198.html (the nano rather then a shuffle though) for podcast downloads of lectures on software testing and development.
Now I have discovered there are videos of testing talks out there - free on google video, tonight I came across this "gem":http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7618420216108922950&q=software+testing

Another Event (or three) for your schedules...

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 05:45:11 -0600

[textile]Well, it looks like the "SQS conferences":http://www.sqs-conferences.com/ are going from strength to strength really. There are another "three":http://www.sqs-conferences.com/ this year, the German event in Dusseldorf which was outstanding last year and there seems to be no dip in quality from the list of "speakers":http://www.sqs-conferences.com/programme/abstracts.htm posted on the site.

laid up

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 02:49:47 -0600

Well, I am off work for a couple of days - I have manflu[1]. So this gives me some time to catch up with conference submissions, planning my trip out to WOPR6 in April, ordering all the books recommended in the blogs I follow[2], finding new items to read to add to my list of blogs, reviewing 2 friends STAREast presentations[3], catching up with blogs and comments and finding new reading materials.

Star East Speakers announced

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 04:26:26 -0600

[textile]The "STAREast":http://www.sqe.com/stareast/glance.asp programme has been posted. Now is a great time to register, as there are discounts galore, if you are not a speaker and can provide some business justification to make the trip.

I can personally recommend the following talks -
Michael Hunter: the braidy tester - I would mention him but he already has in his own far better blog then my own.

STP2006 Call for papers

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 05:03:18 -0600

[textile]The 3rd "STP":http://www.stpcon.com/ conference call for papers is now open, it closes in april, the conference will be in Boston at the start of november, 7th-9th which is a month after "StarWest":http://www.sqe.com/starwest/speak.asp which is mid october this year and a month before "Eurostar":http://www.qualtechconferences.com/content.asp?id=17, which is early december.

I am seriously considering this one, as I may have blown the ability to talk at the rather wonderful "CAST":http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/conference/conference as I still not finished the paper submission and the cut of date is Monday...Gah!

EuroStar 2006 CFP

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 03:16:36 -0600

Is it that time of year already, it seems only weeks since the last conference was on.

So the call for papers for the Eurostar 2006 has opened over the weekend and can be found at [textile]"EurostarCFP":http://www.qualtechconferences.com/content.asp?id=17 though I did not see any dates on it for it for when it closes. The conference will be in Manchester, England and is held the first week of December (4th-7th).