Development methodology
Testing Lessons From Civil Engineering
Submitted by sbarber on Sat, 21/06/2008 - 07:13. context-driven testing | development methodology | events | functional testing | general software testing | heuristics | patterns | perspectives | test analysisBelow 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:
Performance Requirements
Submitted by Alexander Podelko on Mon, 07/01/2008 - 00:08. architecture | design & development | development methodology | non-functional testing | performance testing | performance testing patternsMy performance requirements paper was published in the January issue of Software Test & Performance (pp.18-24).
It was simple: I just sent a draft – and now I am reading it printed. With a new name - or even two: it is referred as You Can Gauge Performance Without Requirements in one place and Gauging Performance in The Absence of Measures in another. Not to mention other minor improvement.
It was simple: I just sent a draft – and now I am reading it printed. With a new name - or even two: it is referred as You Can Gauge Performance Without Requirements in one place and Gauging Performance in The Absence of Measures in another. Not to mention other minor improvement.
From the Mailbox: Software Development: Art or Science?
Submitted by sbarber on Thu, 18/10/2007 - 20:46. design & development | development methodology | metaphors | perspectives | project management- Here’s a question that I didn’t realize I had much to say about until I read my own response.
- The Question:
Software Development: Is it an art or a science? An age old question I know, but what do you think and why?
- My Response:
- I refer to new software development as a scientific art. I've seen some maintenance work, platform porting, etc. that has been almost entirely mechanical -- I'm not sure what that counts as, but I certainly didn't witness anything "artistic".
What Skills Performance Testers Need and How to Get Them?
Submitted by Alexander Podelko on Sun, 07/10/2007 - 02:45. architecture | design & development | development methodology | non-functional testing | performance testing | performance testing patterns | performance testing tools | service oriented architecture | stress testingFrom time to time I see questions on different forums asking what skills are necessary for performance testers. There were pretty interesting discussions. Looks like most experts agree that performance testing requires more skills than just knowledge about how to create a script for a particular load testing tool. While it is still possible to imagine a performance tester in a large corporation with deep specialization who only creates scripts and mechanically runs them while other performance experts monitor the system and analyze results, I don't see many perspectives neither for this person, nor for the approach. Systems become so complicated now that the sum of specialized expert views doesn't give the whole performance picture.
RealSoftwareDevelopment - a new methodology?
Submitted by Antony Marcano on Wed, 04/04/2007 - 01:43. development methodologyAt XTC this evening I was on my soap box about how I am fed up with the strict adherence to generic methodology and the abuse of the term "Agile".
There must be some way of reflecting reality... So, I wrote in my notebook - RealSoftwareDevelopement - a methodology.
(Interestingly, I notice the words 'real' and 'reality' mentioned by Jonathan Kohl from 7000 miles away at around the same time as me standing on my soap-box - we must be in ESP communication with each other).
As I took the journey home, I sketched out the idea...
There must be some way of reflecting reality... So, I wrote in my notebook - RealSoftwareDevelopement - a methodology.
(Interestingly, I notice the words 'real' and 'reality' mentioned by Jonathan Kohl from 7000 miles away at around the same time as me standing on my soap-box - we must be in ESP communication with each other).
As I took the journey home, I sketched out the idea...
CMG 2007 Call for Paper
Submitted by Alexander Podelko on Sun, 11/03/2007 - 16:58. databases & SQL | design & development patterns | development methodology | non-functional testing | performance testing | performance testing patterns | performance testing tools | service oriented architectureThis year performance (load, stress) testing will be a focus track at the CMG 2007 conference. It is the best conference, by my opinion, about performance-related topics. Below is the official text:
The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) calls for papers and presentations for the 33rd International Conference to be held in San Diego, California, December 2nd through 7th, 2007. The 2007 CMG conference will cover load and stress testing, benchmarking, performance optimization, software performance engineering, resource management, capacity analysis, simulation and analytic modeling, and cost management with special emphasis on Virtualization, System Oriented Architecture (SOA), IT Service Management and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and the technology implications of globalization.
The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) calls for papers and presentations for the 33rd International Conference to be held in San Diego, California, December 2nd through 7th, 2007. The 2007 CMG conference will cover load and stress testing, benchmarking, performance optimization, software performance engineering, resource management, capacity analysis, simulation and analytic modeling, and cost management with special emphasis on Virtualization, System Oriented Architecture (SOA), IT Service Management and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and the technology implications of globalization.
Movie tickets and bugs in agile
Submitted by Erik Petersen on Sun, 24/12/2006 - 04:21. bug tracking/incident management | context-driven testing | development methodology | extreme programming (XP) | general software testing | perspectives | test approachesI've been thinking about the way agilistas handle bugs recently. Several years ago, I was the editor of an internal IT newsletter for a large Australian financial organisation. Every month, I'd include a critical thinking puzzle, and I select a correct entry to win 2 movie tickets. I was able to give these out to my Australian readers, but I used to get some entries from our Indian IT shop as well. I arranged to have them win 2 movie tickets as well, if they were chosen as the winner. I thought this was a comparable prize, then I discovered that movie tickets are very cheap in India. In Australia, the prize would pay for a weeks public transport, but in India it would be only a day or two.
What Best Practices really are. -- CIO Article
Submitted by sbarber on Mon, 20/11/2006 - 17:18. context-driven testing | development methodology | ethics | general software testing | metaphors | other online resources | people issues | perspectives | test managementOf all the places I expected to find an article supporting the fact that Best Practices is nothing more than a square on someone's buzz-word bingo card, CIO wasn't it.
The highlights are these...
Using celebs for endorsements has become such best practice that everyone does it. So what is best practice about it? Nothing. The phrase is simply a demonstration of how cliched business language dresses up the concept of copying something someone else has done. And when lots of companies copy the copier, it becomes dull, intellectually stagnant and offers no competitive advantage. It's just a me-too strategy executed by the cynical, the lazy, or the lazy cynics.