It occurred to me as I was wandering through a local bookshop that was undergoing a management change: the local bookstores have decided, apparently, that I’m no longer a customer worth having.
They were in the process of selling off all the old inventory of the former owner, soon to be replaced with “books we think will sell here,” and I got a sinking feeling in my heart. I suspect I know the kind of books the new owner is going to put there, so I took one last stroll around the place, to say good-bye. Oh, I’ll come back to check out the new inventory, but past history tells me that will be the last time I do.
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When do you test, how do you test, why do you test? Or even do you test?
The answers to the first two questions are: “all the time,” and “as completely as possible.” The third question has several, longer, answers. And if you answered “No” to the last question, perhaps those answers will be of use to you.
A first, and rather flippant, answer is “so I know when I’m done.” But even this answer has depth. I don’t just mean, “I got all the bugs, so I can quit.” Whether I’m working off a highly detailed spec, or a back-of-the-napkin sketch I did over dinner, the tests I write will reflect exactly what the object’s supposed to do. (more…)
I’ve tried them all, even tried building my own, either from from other people’s templates or my own. I just can’t seem to make them work.
It’s no doubt just a personal failing. The common wisdom for them is what I call the “Highlander Principle” — there must be only one. It just doesn’t work for me. I can’t find one that I can get comfortable with.
According to Julie Morgenstern I’m a “visual/tactile” person. (This, BTW, fits with everything I’ve picked up from Hellen Buttigeig, so it’s probably true. That means I should be most comfortable with a paper planner. (more…)
I always view personality tests with a jaundiced eye. They remind me of the story of the college professor who told his students he would like to write their horoscope for them: he took their information and the next time class met, he handed out the workups he’d done for each of them. He asked the class how many thought he’d been very accurate and captured them well: every student raised their hand. Then he asked if one of them would read what he’d given them out loud. The entire class broke out laughing as they realized he’d written the exact same text for each one of them.
Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman contains a test, intended to show you how optimistic or pessimistic you are. It gives you 48 questions, which you then score in 6 categories, and then use those category scores to calculate three other scores.
I took the test, and saw my scores fall all over the place, ranging from wildly optimistic to extremely pessimistic. I’m both average and very pessimistic in the permanence categories, while I am both very optimistic and very pessimistic in the pervasiveness categories, and have moderately high or average self-esteem, depending upon which score you accept there. I score as moderately hopeful yet on the subtotals I score as both moderately optimistic and extremely pessimistic (I’d have to more than double that subtotal to even get out of the “Great Pessimism” category). And the total score shows me as very pessimistic.
Does that mean I’m a complex person, filled with contradictions, or rather that the test is flawed?
As a whole, the book is good, but the question nags me: Do we really need 300+ pages just to say Vince Lombardi was right?
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”
Was talking to folks from a local agency (which shall remain nameless, but has initials) the other day, and the conversation came to development practices. I asked what kind of automated testing they were doing, and was met by a series of blank stares; their testing procedure amounted to “load it up in a browser and see what it looks like.”
At this point I probably had trouble keeping the incredulity off my own face. Now, I’ll admit I came to the automated testing party late, and pretty much only because Rails makes it so easy to get started in it. But, having finally made it to the party, I went off in search of automated PHP testing tools. I found PHPUnit, and dove right in.
And I gained a little sympathy for PHP testers. (more…)