Proud to be a tester
Posted by: "Ismail A" http://us.f510.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ismail.ami@gmail.com&Subj=ismail.vellore
Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:27 pm (PST)
This is True Story that happened in some company ___A digital camera was released in the market and after sometime a customercame back complaining that……..
Problem: The camera's software was crashing continuously while he tried tocapture images.
FIR: They first asked some basic information from the customer and made anattempt to reproduce the issue but it was not reproducible.
Analysis:
1) Software is crashing - so they listed out all possible scenarios wherethe software could crash.
2) Tried putting the camera to all listed possibilities.
3) Giving a report to the management that it was unable to be reproduced.
Further Analysis:Taking this as a challenge, a great tester had the following concern
1) He was concerned what festival was it?
2) He was concerned what was the customer was trying to capture?
3) He was concerned what is the frequency of the crash the customer noticed?
4) He was concerned about all other surrounding factors like temperature,place where the festival was celebrated … etc?
Outcome of Analysis:
1) The festival was Diwali or Deepavali!
2) The customer was trying to capture fire crackers, explosion, fireworksdisplay in an open ground at around 22 00 hours (night).What a fantastic tester was he!He identified the problem and told the developers"The camera software is crashing when the viewfinder is black (because ofdark night) and a sudden gush of light through the firecracker explosion isputting the DSP (digital signal processor) to a load/stress beyond itsboundaries to display the image. And at this point of time when the usertries to capture it simply crashes"
What he said?Was right!Finally they fixed it and now today it's a robust digital camera!____ End of a probable true story _____
Summary of lessons
1) Collect real time data for testing a product/application .
2) When you are unable to reproduce an issue, think out of the box, thinkout of the black box.
3) When you are unable to reproduce an issue call someone who can dig deeperthan you.
4) Don't assign test case draft to the person who is going to test it; he may omit complicated cases to bring down his/her complexity in executingit.
5) Review the cases with a non team member/customers/ domainspecialist/tester network.
6) When you release a product: anticipate and be prepared to face suchsituation.
7) Hate the product while testing and love the product after its release -Emotional testing (new concept )
8) Good Testers not only report bugs, they suggest a solution!
9) Keep learning to be a good tester!10) Test all your products in India, its The Testing Bowl of the world!
11) Don't terminate an issue just because you are unable to reproduce, itcould kill a company!How was it….?—if possible fwd it to the larger team.
*Be proud of being TESTER coz
*All programs are Poems,
its just that not all programmers are poets
ALL TESTERS ARE TERRORS,
ITS JUST NOT ALL TESTERS ARE TERRORISTS
-- Thanks &Regards,Ismail A
Friday, August 17, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Check out my new Related Links section
I added a new section called Related Links. First link is Advance QTP Concepts which discusses the ffg:
1. Error Handling
2. Calling External Files
3. Using VBScript for Validation
4. Dynamic Database Validation
5. Descriptive Programming language
6. QTP Coding Standards
7. Designing a script
Personally i like the QTP Coding Standard part. Just in time for creating my very first framework. I'm leaning towards combining Functional Decomposition and Data-Driven with Business Function Utilities and Parametarization. See Automated Testing Methodologies link.
1. Error Handling
2. Calling External Files
3. Using VBScript for Validation
4. Dynamic Database Validation
5. Descriptive Programming language
6. QTP Coding Standards
7. Designing a script
Personally i like the QTP Coding Standard part. Just in time for creating my very first framework. I'm leaning towards combining Functional Decomposition and Data-Driven with Business Function Utilities and Parametarization. See Automated Testing Methodologies link.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Advice for budding software test professionals ...
Here are few points of the post that I made for QTP yahoo groups - in response to a query made for FAQ/interview questions on QTP. The main motivation for me to post this is that I see most of the new entrants in this field, do not know where to invest time and effort to know the field of testing. Often they end up reading some FAQ or Typical interview questions posted on some site and think that they have arrived. Software testing today suffers from lack of education and awareness about "What it takes to be a software tester" and "how to successfully carry out and add value to the overall process of software development.
Read on .....
Here is my advice to all aspiring QTP or Test engineers and professionals. These are lessons I learnt personally and useful for any software professional who is serious in testing.
1. Do not look for short cuts to learn and get knowledge. Have a long term plans to get good mileage in this profession. FAQs, etc are good to read only for knowing top line. To succeed in the interview you will have to win it from inside of your heart, invest honestly in studying and expect fruits. Banking on FAQs, interview questions etc may get you the job but will not keep you there.
2. Most important for a tester is to understand what makes a good tester? How he/she is different from a developer? What value tester brings to the table? How to find talent in testing and nurture it? How testing is different from QA or any flavor of process (CMM, Six sigma) etc.
3. Invest in sharpen problem solving and "thinking out of box" abilities. Read good stuff on testing. Participate in conferences, discuss with test professionals in other companies, participate in activities in SPIN, etc. Solve puzzles ( zig saw or shankuntala devi). Never stop learning.
4. Sharpen Technology skills. Know about "How web works" , DNS, Networking, protocols, XML, Web services, Cryptography, databases, Datawarehousing, UNIX commands, Fundas of J2EE, .NET, system admin list is endless. Today testers are expected to know the basics. I take lot of interviews for various positions. Most of the people do not have these basics. It is difficult to survive in this world of testing only banking on "Automation tool" knowledge.
5. Lean programming languages like , C#, Java and scripting languages like PERL, python, Unix shell etc. This will increase utility value of yours. Developers and PMs will respect you.
6. Improve communication skills - take English class. Improve vocabulary. Read Read and Read.Most of the people I have seen ignore this important skill. They can not write a paragraph on their own without spelling and grammatical mistakes. Make a habit to learn a new word a day.
7. Read and write on blogs ( Google to find out what is blog- if you don’t know already). Here are few blogs that I suggest for every test professional.
http://www.testingeducation.org/ - cem kaners free testing courses.http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog - Brian Merick sitehttp://blackbox.cs.fit.edu/blog/james/ - James Bach - highly respected Visionary in testing.http://www.qualitytree.com/index.htmlhttp://blogs.msdn.com/micahel/ - Microsoft’s Famous Braidy Testerhttp://www.developsense.com/blog.html - Michael Bolten - Testing in plain Englishhttp://www.stickyminds.comhttp://www.kohl.ca/blog/ - Jonathan Kohlhttp://www.io.com/~wazmo/blog/ - Bret Pettichord - Automation testing Guruand
my own blogs -http://blogs.msdn.com/shrinik ( my Microsoft blog - is closed since left that company)http://shrinik.blogspot.com
Last but not the least, Be a person with positive outlook in the life. Believe in yourself other wise nobody else will believe you
All the best. Let us build a next generation test professionals community and change the way world does testing today.
Read on .....
Here is my advice to all aspiring QTP or Test engineers and professionals. These are lessons I learnt personally and useful for any software professional who is serious in testing.
1. Do not look for short cuts to learn and get knowledge. Have a long term plans to get good mileage in this profession. FAQs, etc are good to read only for knowing top line. To succeed in the interview you will have to win it from inside of your heart, invest honestly in studying and expect fruits. Banking on FAQs, interview questions etc may get you the job but will not keep you there.
2. Most important for a tester is to understand what makes a good tester? How he/she is different from a developer? What value tester brings to the table? How to find talent in testing and nurture it? How testing is different from QA or any flavor of process (CMM, Six sigma) etc.
3. Invest in sharpen problem solving and "thinking out of box" abilities. Read good stuff on testing. Participate in conferences, discuss with test professionals in other companies, participate in activities in SPIN, etc. Solve puzzles ( zig saw or shankuntala devi). Never stop learning.
4. Sharpen Technology skills. Know about "How web works" , DNS, Networking, protocols, XML, Web services, Cryptography, databases, Datawarehousing, UNIX commands, Fundas of J2EE, .NET, system admin list is endless. Today testers are expected to know the basics. I take lot of interviews for various positions. Most of the people do not have these basics. It is difficult to survive in this world of testing only banking on "Automation tool" knowledge.
5. Lean programming languages like , C#, Java and scripting languages like PERL, python, Unix shell etc. This will increase utility value of yours. Developers and PMs will respect you.
6. Improve communication skills - take English class. Improve vocabulary. Read Read and Read.Most of the people I have seen ignore this important skill. They can not write a paragraph on their own without spelling and grammatical mistakes. Make a habit to learn a new word a day.
7. Read and write on blogs ( Google to find out what is blog- if you don’t know already). Here are few blogs that I suggest for every test professional.
http://www.testingeducation.org/ - cem kaners free testing courses.http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog - Brian Merick sitehttp://blackbox.cs.fit.edu/blog/james/ - James Bach - highly respected Visionary in testing.http://www.qualitytree.com/index.htmlhttp://blogs.msdn.com/micahel/ - Microsoft’s Famous Braidy Testerhttp://www.developsense.com/blog.html - Michael Bolten - Testing in plain Englishhttp://www.stickyminds.comhttp://www.kohl.ca/blog/ - Jonathan Kohlhttp://www.io.com/~wazmo/blog/ - Bret Pettichord - Automation testing Guruand
my own blogs -http://blogs.msdn.com/shrinik ( my Microsoft blog - is closed since left that company)http://shrinik.blogspot.com
Last but not the least, Be a person with positive outlook in the life. Believe in yourself other wise nobody else will believe you
All the best. Let us build a next generation test professionals community and change the way world does testing today.
What’s the Boundary Value Analysis
by Mayank
Boundary Value Analysis is one of technique which is used in Black Box Testing. In this technique we are analyzing the data that which type of data we shall use in test inputs? Actually when we test any application which have some fields and required test inputs then we analyze the data values like which type of data it will accept and how many data and how long? We can say that Boundary Value Analysis is data selection technique includes maximum value, minimum value, error value, abnormal values and assume that when application work with these different types data then it will work all type of data in between. Assume that you have one text field which is accept only 1 to 10 number then we can test this text field with these data 0.1, -1, 11, 10.0, and some character. Please let me know if I’m wrong.
Boundary Value Analysis is one of technique which is used in Black Box Testing. In this technique we are analyzing the data that which type of data we shall use in test inputs? Actually when we test any application which have some fields and required test inputs then we analyze the data values like which type of data it will accept and how many data and how long? We can say that Boundary Value Analysis is data selection technique includes maximum value, minimum value, error value, abnormal values and assume that when application work with these different types data then it will work all type of data in between. Assume that you have one text field which is accept only 1 to 10 number then we can test this text field with these data 0.1, -1, 11, 10.0, and some character. Please let me know if I’m wrong.
Choosing a test automation framework
by Sachin Dhall
There are lot of resources on the internet explaining different types of automation frameworks and how to go about selecting one of them those suites your environment.
Below are few links which provide you solid understanding of the software test automation frameworks.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/591.html
www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/411/rankin.pdf
http://www.wilsonmar.com/WRSAFS/Docs/CHAPTER1.doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Automation_Framework
www.michaeldkelly.com/images/Choosing_a_Test_Automation_Framework.PDF
www.logigear.com/resources/articles_lg/Automation_Framework.pdf
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