John D. Cook recently issued a blog post, How many errors are left to find?, in which he introduces yet another silly quantitative model for estimating the number of bugs left in a program. The Lincoln Index, as Mr. Cook refers to it here, was used as a model for evaluating typographical errors, and was [...]

On April 19, 2010, I was interviewed by Gil Broza.  In preparation for that interview, we solicited questions from the listeners, and I promised to answer them either in the interview or in my blog.  Here’s the second one. Unit testing is automated. When functional, integration, and system test cannot be automated, how to handle [...]

Here’s a case where a comment and question were worthy of a post of their own.  In reference to my recent post, Testers:  Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business, Selim Mia writes: Hi Michael, I have started following your blog just from past few days and I like to thank you for all of [...]

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. [...]

In a recent blog post, James Bach discusses the essence of heuristics. A heuristic is a fallible method for solving a problem or making a decision. When used as an adjective, “heuristic” means fallible and conducive to learning. James ends the post by introducing a number of questions in order to test whether someone is [...]

Part of the joy of producing this blog is in seeing what happens when other people pick up the ideas and run with them.  That happened when I posted a scenario on management mistakes a few weeks ago, and Markus Gärtner responded with far more energy and thought than I would have expected. Last week [...]

A transpection is a dialog for learning. James Bach describes it here. Transpection is a technique we use a lot to refine ideas for presentations, for articles, for our course, or for our own understanding. Sometimes it’s all of them put together. Transpective sessions with James have led me sharpen ideas and to do work [...]

On April 19, 2010, I was interviewed by Gil Broza.  In preparation for that interview, we solicited questions from the listeners, and I promised to answer them either in the interview or in my blog.  Here’s the first one. How to deal with un-experienced testers? is there a test approach that suits better for them? [...]