[All Things Quality] Nursery Rhymes For Testers

Nursery Rhymes for Testers


Inspired by Anne-Marie Charrett at  http://mavericktester.com/archive/mary-mary-quite-contrary , here are some updated Nursery Rhymes for Testers.


London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down,
London Bridge is falling down,
But it works on my machine. copyrightjoestrazzere

All around the cobbler's bench
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey thought it was all in fun,
Smart Monkey Tester.

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl,
And he called for a UAT.

Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John,
Went to bed with his stockings on;
One shoe off, and one shoe on,
But that matches the expected results.

As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, 
Each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats, 
Each cat had seven kits: kits, cats, sacks, wives, 
Why is a manhole cover round?

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said "Is this a feature or a bug?"

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran his regression tests.

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for my master, one for my dame,
And one for the final round of testing.

Ladybug ladybug fly away home,
Your house in on fire and your children are gone,
All except one and that's little Ann,
But I can't reproduce that one quite on demand.

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went to the Triage Meeting.


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Failure Is ...

pollice verso

According to Google (and Google knows everything), failure is: copyrightjoestrazzere
  • Failure is a stepping stone to success
  • Failure is not an option
  • Failure is the mother of success
  • Failure is impossible
  • Failure is a pillar to success
  • Failure is not an option - it's a requirement
  • Failure is always an option
  • Failure is not an option - it's a necessity
  • Failure is the key to success
  • Failure is not fatal
  • Failure is absolutely crucial
  • Failure is part of learning
  • Failure is in not trying
  • Failure is an option
  • Failure is a gateway to success
  • Failure is a four-letter word
  • Failure is only the opportunity to begin again
  • Failure is inevitable
  • Failure is success if we learn from it
  • Failure is not final
  • Failure is not a factory-installed option

Can you add more to the list?


Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] March Madness - My Brackets

Folks in the office here are posting their March Madness Brackets.

Here are mine:




I think I've got some real winners in this bunch!


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Why It's Not Smart To Fake Test Results

Of course the six years I blow off my test results, this happens

Hundreds, or even thousands, of drunk driving convictions could be overturned because the San Francisco Police Department had not properly tested its breathalyzers recently: copyrightjoestrazzere

  • hundreds of drunk-driving convictions in San Francisco could be tossed out
  • did not properly maintain and calibrate their 20 breath analyzer machines
  • sensors have not been properly maintained since at least 2006
  • supposed to test these devices every 10 days
  • didn’t bother to test or calibrate the equipment, instead simply entering the suggested control values into the test results
  • logs show page after page of columns with the same result when there should have been a difference
  • the coordinators were apparently just too lazy to perform the test required every 10 days

This reminds me of an episode in the television series The Office. Dunder Mifflin Scraton's Director of Quality Assurance Creed Bratton is shown to have neglected his duties.

Reams of paper containing an obscene watermark depicting "the image of a beloved cartoon duck performing unspeakable acts upon a certain cartoon mouse that a lot of people like" are shipped to customers.

Creed's reply: "Every week I’m supposed to take four hours and do a quality spot check at the paper mill. And of course the one year I blow it off, this happens."

See also:

http://www.allthingsquality.com/2010/04/you-might-be-in-quabbity-assurance-if.html


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Beta Tester Opportunities For Better Testers

Be better - be a Beta!

A while back I posted about being a Beta Tester

Beta testing can be a nice way to enhance your skills as a tester, and perhaps add to your resume.
Here are a few more opportunities.  As always, be careful out there in Beta land.

Movieggs
Currently we are running a closed beta of Movieggs. This means that there are a limited number of people who can register at this time. We are looking for people who would like the opportunity to help us shape Movieggs into a natural complement to your online experience and future media consumption.

ModDB
Tanktical is a pass n' play multiplayer game for the iPad 2. 
After rounds of internal testing, we have now decided Tanktical our TBS game is ready to dominate the world. Well not really ... but  beta testing is a good start. As you can probably tell, we need a dose of reality in the form of feedback from you guys! 
There are EMPs, missiles, mines and sheep - what more can you ask for? Well actually that's what we want to know.  
If you are interested in jumping on board to help us test - please sign up at Test Flight.

Opera
Ever wanted to Beta test Opera Mini? Well Opera Mini Next is just that - a preview version of what's next for Opera Mini. 
To download the Opera Mini Next browser to your phone right now, visit this link with your mobile phone: m.opera.com/next.

Stack Exchange
We've just entered private beta for our new StackTrace iPad app. We'd like to add some additional testers and get more feedback. 
Our signup page, including additional information is available at http://stacktraceapp.com. Please sign up if you're interested in the app or for joining the beta. You'll need an iPad 1 or 2 running at least iOS 4.3. If you also add a comment here it will help us get in immediate contact. 
Thanks! We're really excited about this.

This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Perhaps They Should Have Tested More - Windows Azure

So we know it's Leap Day, but what time is it?

On Wednesday, February 29th, Windows Azure experienced about 8 hours of downtime for some of its critical services. The cause? Leap Day. copyrightjoestrazzere

  • a component of Windows Azure experienced a worldwide outage for eight hours
  • a series of outages that affected multiple aspects of the system 
  • prevented customers from carrying out management operations for technology that uses the cloud management service
  • issue appears to be due to a time calculation that was incorrect for the leap year
  • outage apparently was triggered by a key server in Ireland housing a certificate that expired at midnight on Feb. 28
  • Azure users posted a stream of critical comments about the outages to the service's official forums
  • a customer described the problem as an "admin nightmare" and said they couldn't understand how such an important system could go down.
  • Microsoft blamed the Azure management problems on a "cert issue triggered on 2/29/02"
  • the service has not been around for four years yet, and on its first leap year day, it collapsed
  • initial problems propagated to different territories, and live customer-facing sites became unavailable
  • in some markets, Microsoft had promoted its Azure cloud service using the slogan “I laugh in the face of unpredictability”.
  • "Microsoft will have to start its cloud marketing from scratch, to rebuild a level of trust that has now crumbled"

Perhaps Leap Day wasn't predictable for Microsoft (although experts tell me that it has been known to occur almost every 4 years), and those time calculations can indeed be tricky.

But perhaps Microsoft should have tested more.

See also:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/Microsoft-Windows-Azure-Downtime-Blamed-on-Leap-Year-Bug-707169/
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Microsoft-Azure-LeapYear-Glitch-Key-Lessons-Learned-280164/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224792/Microsoft_Azure_stabilizes_after_leap_year_glitch
http://www.tgdaily.com/software-brief/61798-azure-leap-day-bug-causes-chaos
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/29/windows_azure_outage/
http://www.informationweek.com/news/cloud-computing/infrastructure/232601812
http://www.zdnet.com/news/windows-azure-suffers-worldwide-outage/6348160
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/251043/microsofts_azure_cloud_suffers_serious_outage.html


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Take The Crappy Path

Take The Crappy Path

Wikipedia defines the Happy Path as "a default scenario that features no exceptional or error conditions, and comprises the sequence of activities that will be executed if everything goes as expected."

Alan Page calls it "Simple inputs that should always work."

Developers take the Happy Path. Their Unit Tests often consist of using their code in the obvious way in order to produce the expected results. They instinctively want to see their new creations succeed so they inevitably focus on success. See how nicely behaved my code is! Happy, happy. copyrightjoestrazzere

Product Managers take the Happy Path. Put nice values in, take a nice marketing-oriented screenshot of the results. Show it to the Sales Team. Happiness all around.

End Users typically take the Happy Path during User Acceptance Testing. A little bit of typical clean input in, typical expected output out. Now let me stop wasting time with this new system and get back to my real work, so I can leave on time and be Happy.

And you use the Happy Path in your testing. After all, if the new build of your system-under-test can't stand up to the Happy Path, why waste any more of your valuable testing time?

But you don't settle for staying on the Happy Path. No, you are a professional tester; you can do better! You know that nobody else will bother, so it's up to you. You step onto the Crappy Path:

  • You see a date field and you think - February is a crappy month, so why don't I just enter February 31st and see what happens...
  • The system asks you to upload a text file? Well, let's just see what it thinks of a picture of my crappy dog, renamed to have a .TXT extension...
  • Hmm. This website says not to use the browser's Back button. Sounds like a crappy challenge to me!
  • Install, uninstall, then install again? That would be a crappy thing to do...
  • The application is asking you for your age. You're feeling crappy, so for today perhaps your age will be "-1"...
  • A registration form?  Perhaps you'll completely fill every character in every field, usually with crappy special characters...
  • Nothing but a crappy system would have only 0.5 GB disk space remaining. Let's just see what happens to this application on a crappy system...
  • Seeing a fork in the road, you say to yourself - What would happen if I replaced that crappy fork with a knife...

So leave the Happy Path to the optimistic, the timid, the weak, and the simple. Join the ranks of professional testers. Venture with me off the beaten path, and onto the Crappy Path!

Leave me a comment if you have a particularly good story about testing on the Crappy Path.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Perhaps They Should Have Tested More - Russian Space Agency

Not actually the Russian Mars Probe

The Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt launched on November 9th, 2011, was working immediately after launch.  But a command to start the engines wasn't successful. Instead, the spacecraft went into "safe mode" and was trapped in orbit until it splashed into the ocean two months later. copyrightjoestrazzere

After investigation, the Russian Federal Space Agency's conclusion was: Programming error.

  • $165 million mission
  • The main cause of the failure was a programming error.
  • Mission was halted by "a programming error which led to a simultaneous reboot of two working channels of an onboard computer,"
  • Reboot put the spacecraft in safe mode
  • Craft stranded in orbit several hundred miles above Earth
  • Phobos-Grunt crashed back to Earth on Jan. 15
  • "Cheap parts, design shortcomings, and lack of pre-flight testing ensured that the spacecraft would never fulfill its goals," - Former Planetary Society executive director Louis Friedman
  • "Might have been caught had they performed adequate component and system testing prior to flight." - Friedman

Perhaps Louis Friedman is right, and they should have tested more.

Also see:


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] NFL 2011 Season Predictions Revisited

Patriots preseason rainbow - a pot of gold at the end of the playoffs?

With Super Bowl XLVI fast approaching, I thought it would be interesting to look back on the predictions some sports writers made before the season started.

NFL Network
  • Bucky Brooks - Packers over Chargers
  • Jason La Canfora - Saints over Patriots
  • Elliot Harrison - Jets over Packers
  • Steve Wyche - Saints over Patriots
  • Pat Kirwan - Packers over Patriots
  • Michael Lombardi - Saints over Patriots
  • Albert Breer - Saints over Patriots

ESPN
  • Jeffri Chariha - Packers over Patriots
  • John Clayton - Patriots over Packers
  • Ashley Fox - Steelers over Eagles
  • Dan Graziano - Chargers over Sanits
  • Paul Kuharsy - Saints over Patriots
  • Mike Sando - Patriots over Packers
  • Adam Schefter - Patriots over Cowboys
  • Kevin Seifert - Packers over Patriots
  • James Walker - Patriots over Eagles
  • Bill Williamson - Jets over Falcons
  • Matt Williamson - Patriots over Saints
  • Pat Yasinskas - Patriots over Eagles

FOX
  • Brian Billick - Packers over Chargers
  • Alex Marvez - Saints over Patriots
  • Adam Schein - Packers over Patriots
  • Peter Schrager - Packers over Patriots
  • Nancy Gay - Saints over Patriots
  • Sid Saraf - Patriots over Packers
  • Ross Jones - Cowboys over Jets

Sports Illustrated
  • Peter King - Falcons over Chargers
  • Don Banks - Packers over Ravens
  • Jim Trotter - Patriots over Saints
  • Chris Burke - Saints over Chargers
  • Damon Hack - Patriots over Packers
  • Kerry J. Byrne - Packers over Patriots
  • Andrew Perloff - Saints over Jets
  • Tom Mantzouranis - Saints over Chargers

CBS
  • Will Brinson - Chargers over Cowboys
  • Ryan Wilson - Steelers over Saints
  • Josh Katzowitz - Saints over Patriots

Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extras/globe_nfl_predictions_2011/
  • Dan Shaughnessy - Jets over Lions
  • Greg A. Bedard - Saints over Patriots
  • Shalize Manza Young - Packers over Patriots
  • Christopher L. Gasper - Cowboys over Jets
  • Monique Walker - Ravens over Lions
  • Jim McBride - Patriots over Giants



This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.

[All Things Quality] Glitches Are...

Glitches are...

According to Google (and Google knows everything), glitches are:
  • Glitches are now your fault
  • Glitches are really getting old
  • Glitches are great for video games
  • Glitches are a bigger problem than most people realize
  • Glitches are magic
  • Glitches are starting to piss me off
  • Glitches are back
  • Glitches are awesome
  • Glitches are getting very annoying
  • Glitches are dumb
  • Glitches are a barrel of laughs
  • Glitches are just as common as base hits
  • Glitches are cool
  • Glitches are not ok
  • Glitches are hilarious
  • Glitches are fatal
  • Glitches are always cool
  • Glitches are driving up costs
  • Glitches are said to hurt antiterror effort
  • Glitches are not fixed
  • Glitches are driving me nuts
  • Glitches are something we need to work on

Can you add more to the list?


This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://AllThingsQuality.com/.