testingReflections.com - patterns

Latest Column -- Testing training: Disturbing behaviors of students

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:17:13 -0600

My latest column...

Drive-by training. Never heard of it? It is exactly what it sounds like. You drive to a training facility (or an instructor drives to you), for a day or three the instructor delivers the pre-packaged training class, then everyone drives back home. It's not the best training model ever invented. There is generally no student assessment, and the only instructor/course provider accountability is reputation. Even so, many good ideas can be shared and lots of students come away feeling that it was well worth "the drive."

As it turns out, I've been delivering a lot of drive-by training to software testers this fall. That in itself isn't particularly noteworthy -- end-of-the-budget year is a popular time for drive-by training -- but something that is noteworthy is that I have noticed a rise in some disturbing behaviors among the individuals and organizations that select and attend drive-by training.

At first, I thought it was just me. But after an informal poll (and some lively discussions) with my employees and trainer friends in the testing realm, I became increasingly convinced that the behaviors I'm noticing are not exclusive to me and that I'm not the only one who thinks they are on the rise.

Read the rest of the column.

--
Scott Barber
President & Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
Executive Director, Association for Software Testing
Co-Author, Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

"If you can see it in your mind...
you will find it in your life."

Gateways... Services... Providers... No! They're "Business Experts"

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 07:02:44 -0500

I'm working with a customer that is implementing a website that allows customers to purchase products... This site has to talk to various webservices to obtain information about pricing and delivery options.

They were concerned that they didn't know what the interface for the delivery options web service was going to be so of course, I simply highlighted that this should be abstracted from their system as much as possible. All they new is that for a given order (made up of delivery address and the list of products) delivery options will vary depending on the types of products ordered and the delivery address. Other solutions (such as an internal call-centre package) will also be using the delivery options web service.

Testing Lessons From Civil Engineering

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:13:14 -0500

Below is the paper I submitted as a prologue to an experience report, discussion, and (hopefully) additional research that I'm presenting for the first time during:

Classify Performance Tests: IVECTRAS

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:45:02 -0500

This is the second installment of a currently unknown number of posts about heuristics and mnemonics I find valuable when teaching and conducting performance testing.

Other posts about performance testing heuristics and mnemonics are:


I have struggled for over 7 years now with first figuring out and then trying to explain all the different "types" of performance tests. You know the ones:


Well, I finally have an alternative.

IVECTRAS

So you want to build a spice rack?

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:32:46 -0600

"A hammer?" he asks. "Nobody really buys hammers anymore. They're kind of old fashioned."(Now try testing it...)

Read the full blog entry

Test Patterns and Test Anti Patterns

Sun, 22 May 2005 10:46:37 -0500

Well I know Brian Marick experimented with the a few years ago and has moved on to the exemplar approach, there are drafts of what I feel will become an excellent book on his site, see blogroll on testing reflections for the link to his site.
However I still feel there is mileage in the idea and Brian was just once more too far ahead of the wave. So i am going to start some blogs on the subject of test patterns, good ideas in a given context, and will use examples of these as well as metaphors to try and demonstrate the reason they are effective.

Extract Transform Load - Data Migration Pattern...

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:45:05 -0500

[textile]I am reviewing a test plan for the testing of the data migration from a legacy system to a new system... in the process I had to familiarise myself with the pattern used for the migration... "Extract Transform Load (ETL)":http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpatterns/html/ArcMovingDataCopies.asp

Interesting read... although it doesn't seem to mention that it should be used for one-off data migration, it seems to fit the profile.

The article is particularly useful as it warns you of some of the potential liabilities of using it.

Animated Workflow Patterns

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 05:30:10 -0500

[textile]A colleague brought "www.workflowpatterns.com":http://www.workflowpatterns.com to my attention today... looks like a useful site for patterns that can be used for designing workflows... Particularly, I am interested in this for the purpose of facilitating the design of tests for workflow systems...

I am not sure if they will be relevant yet. Once I have had a chance (and a reason) to look through them, I will let you know...

patterns the microsoft way...

Tue, 10 Aug 2004 06:46:34 -0500

[textile]The funny thing with Microsoft is that if they are (a) for something, you know that it is probably because they know that it is the next big thing - and they intend to own it... if they are (b)against something, it might be propaganda because it is probably the next big thing, and they can't own it... :-)

"Microsoft's patterns & practices site":http://www.microsoft.com/resources/practices/community.mspx site is definitely in category (a)! It has many useful links to blogs and resources, including some up-coming webinars, like one on "Test Driven Development on July 15th 2004":http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032256315&Culture=en-US.

so what is a software testing pattern?

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 06:58:35 -0500

[textile]Sorry to anyone reading this if I am telling you what you already know, but for the uninitiated, a **pattern**, put simply, is a common approach to solving a recurring problem or problem-type.

They have been around since the 70's (but I was only knee high to a grasshopper then - honest)... but considering how useful they are, I am surprised that it isn't talked about as much and certainly not as much in the UK (not in my experience in testing over the last decade)...