Below is a response we wrote to the latest Tester Magazines Newsletter article; what’s All the Fuss About? Structured vs Unstructured Testing. This was email directly to the author Geoff Horne but after his reply suggested this be used in the next edition of his magazine we felt it would be best published on our own Hello Test World blog.
If you have any thoughts, we’ll be looking forward to the in the comments.
We are excited to announce that as of today David Greenlees will be joining the HTW blog team!
He is from the land of Oz, but other than that he’s a really good guy 
He is also the creator of OZWST in Australia and is actively involved in progressing the testing profession. His next challenge is to get the Let’s Test conference started this side of the globe. Watch out 2014 for that one!
This is somewhat of a strange post here but it’s something I need to remember how to do and because it was hard to find. So if you’re not into JMeter please move on, there’s nothing to see here!
My first formal presentation was tonight. It was a 2 hour talk with a discussion on the topic of ‘Demise of Test Scripts; Rise of Test Ideas’. It was at Atlasssian headquarters, Sydney.
Here is my experience report.
In every project (well, nearly every one) there comes the moment, when testing gets squeezed for time. Immediately the next question becomes how to cut back testing in a sensible way.
The immediate reaction of many a tester (especially if she went through some kind formal training) goes a little like this:
Use Risk Based Testing!
I agree but sort of don’t…
SoftEd wrote a blog post about UAT and how hard it was (here). I gave a longish reply and thought it might be good to re-iterate my thoughts on User Acceptance Testing (UAT) here on the blog.
I think the primary premise of what UAT should be, that we have here in Wellington/New Zealand, is wrong.
Last week (25.10.2012) the first WeTest Meetup Workshop was held in Wellington. This is a Meetup group that meets loosely bi-monthly and conforms to the same experience report style as KWST, OZWST and LAWST does.
Needless to say the event, instigated by Aaron Hodder, Katrina Edgar and Brian Osman, was quite a success. The topic was “Experiances in Test Automation”. Discussion was lively and there was lots to take home & think about. Read up on the details in these blog posts:
Thanks go to Assurity for helping fund the venue, food and drinks! Also thanks to everyone there for the great participation. The next Workshop will be on the 6th of December. Places are filling up quickly.
Author: Oliver Erlewein
Some weeks ago I saw John Hockenberry‘s talk “We are all designers”. It really struck a chord in me. The whole concept of intent and what part it plays in our lives. I’ll quote some parts of what he said:
Design — bad design, there’s just no excuse for it. It’s letting stuff happen without thinking about it. Every object should be about something, John. It should imagine a user. It should cast that user in a story starring the user and the object.
Good design … is about supplying intent.
…
It’s as though intent is an essential component for humanity. It’s what we’re supposed to do somehow.We’re supposed to act with intent. We’re supposed to do things by design. Intent is a marker for civilization.
…
An object devoid of intent –it’s random, it’s imitative, it repels us. It’s like a piece of junk mail to be thrown away. This is what we must demand of our lives, of our objects, of our things, of our circumstances: living with intent.
For weeks now there is a blog post of mine unpublished. It is all around the small things that count in testing. But I wasn’t really happy with it. Something was missing or I wasn’t getting the point I was trying to make. Today it dawned on me what was missing. It was the INTENT John talks about above.
http://www.meetup.com/WeTest-Workshops/
The brain child of Aaron Hodder and Katrina Edgar… and thanks to Richard Robinson and David Greenlees for sharing their experiences on setting up a meet up group for software testers….
For testers in Wellington who are interested in testing discussions with other practitioners.
Monthly workshop events of a similar format to KWST – a presenter introduces a topic to the group, and attendees are then encouraged to discuss, question, challenge, and share ideas on that topic. Participation is expected, so come prepared to contribute!
Meet thinking testers in the Wellington testing community, engage in practical discussion, and eat pizza.
The Kiwi Workshop on Software Testing is a dream come true for New Zealand testers. It represents an opportunity for the thought leaders and community-driven testers to gather and share war stories. But it’s so much more than that. James Bach has attended for the 2nd year running which adds the momentum and rich test ideas that gets the minds of the participants revved up.
KWST lets us debate on friendly turf. Through using turn-taking coloured cards, heated testing topics can be fully explored, and talking turns can be controlled. As a facilitator, I thoroughly enjoyed watching heated discussions progress until the deep issues came to the surface.
