a quick, partial list of stuff I’ve installed, and use, on my mac:
From Brian Marick, on the agile-testing list:
Simon Baker’s written a nice short summary of testing in his Agile project. It pretty much captures my biases. (That’s what “nice” means.)
I am inspired by a recent blog entry by Ben Simo.
To me, software testing is what happens when someone asks me to tell them something about some software system. They might ask me to find problems or bugs. They might ask me if I think the system is any good. They might ask me if I think it is fit for use in a particular situation. They might ask me if the system meets a set of requirements.
I really like it when they make my job challenging. It’s no fun to find lots of bugs or lots of missed requirements very quickly and very easily, or to discover that adding the third client session locks up the server. Instead, I’d much rather have to work harder and smarter to reveal useful, previously unknown information to the person who is asking.
I can use software tools to help investigate software systems, and I can help others use software tools, like automated tests and executable specifications, to help them do their jobs better.
But I don’t know how to help someone answer the question “Tell me something about this system that I should know, but didn’t know that I should ask” by using a tool. Answering that kind of question needs a tester.
Answering that kind of question needs me.