Note. The reason of this posting is two-fold:

• While considering taking the Rapid Software Testing course I found surprisingly little of feedback information on testers’ blogs, and none of that addressed the questions I actually had. So I’m fixing this issue retrospectively.
• There are too many aggressive pseudo-education “courses” or scamming certification schemas advertised on every corner. I think it’s time for all the testers who care about the craft to start caring about signal/noise ratio. I do it with my personal endorsement.

And here it goes in a question-answer format.

- Why should I take the course if there are a lot of materials available online, for free? 

Yes, there are many articles, blog posts and presentations available online on James Bach’s and Michael Bolton’s web-sites. They are provided in a form of condensed knowledge. They are conclusions. And the course is rich with hands-on, practical exercises, which allowed me to digest the theory and acquire the conclusions as if they were my own. Plus the special exercises giving a chance to try what have just been learnt.

Yet the materials available online served another important purpose for me. Reading them, studying them, prepares for taking of the course at much deeper level, as there are many layers of knowledge there. 

-  What I wish was different?

 The first answer would be the length. I wish it was 5 days long. Some areas were touched too briefly. (Though Michael Bolton explicitly said that he leaves a lot for personal learning, and that’s what I’m doing quite actively). Anyway, if there was a “Follow up RST course” I would have gladly gone for it. Since we don’t have one, I channel my energy into personal learning and online collaboration with likeminded testers, especially at Weekend Testing Americas.

In technical aspects, I wish we talked more about multi-tier, large scale applications. That’s what I deal with at work, and that’s where I see – applying the heuristic-based approach gives especially critical advantages. 

- What this course does not teach?  (and some about what it does)

It does not teach abstract definitions and bookish techniques. However, it teaches to critically assess claims and statements without worshipping to labels and metrics.  This prepares to be comfortable and efficient as a tester in a variety of environments with their unique contexts and challenges.

The course teaches to develop and thoughtfully apply testing techniques as needed and as long as they make sense (dealing with the problem of “best practices”).

The course doesn’t teach testing politics or staff management. However, we were given some effective communication techniques that one can apply in all levels of the organization.

The course doesn’t teach either programming or ‘test automation’. However, Michael Bolton demonstrated some impressive examples on how use of tools and scripts amplifies effectiveness of tests. I’ve also learnt about the ways how an automation developer can increase his value for the testing team. 

- Which part I didn’t get? 

Or, at least, I’m not sure I got it the way it was intended.

This is test estimation part. I know from my own experience, and I totally agree with the concept that nobody really cares about “test estimation” – testing just absolutely must fit the development schedule (“Release date is written in stone!”). That is why, as a contractor, and a test lead, I pretty much do “test budgeting” trying to use the time given most effectively instead of demanding for the time budget based on the estimates. And budgeting time boxes for session-based exploratory testing – I get that. But how to plan “test execution phase”? How to bake in time for investigation of unknown problems and re-testing of unknown number of bug fixes? Possibly, these questions are addressed in “Rapid Software Testing for Test Managers” course? I’m definitely going to take this one. 

- What I found especially challenging in the course? 

The course is called Rapid Software Testing for a reason. Yet, I’m rather analytical type of person. You know – gather [all relevant] information, build a picture (model), carefully review, etc.. Of course, in testing, redundancy of information is a luxury one rarely has. As the course teaches rapid and fallible methods of assessment (heuristics) in conditions of lack of information and time pressure, I felt that my ‘natural habits’ anchor me. This was a bit frustrating at times. 

- Did I feel disappointed in some of my expectations about the course?

No, not at all. In fact, I gained more than I expected. However, I used to see some comments online expressing vague disappointment. With regards to those, I can say – the course is not a magical initiation which instantly turns students into testing experts. Instead, it shows the lead and charges with the inspiration to follow the road of continuous learning. And that’s the most valuable takeaway. 

- What I have gained I didn’t expect at all?

I have read some wide-known books about testing and even much more online article. I heard of the notion of a ‘testing story’ in online talks within the context-driven community. But the course gave me clear and concise points – what is that, why is that important, and even how to do that – telling testing story.

-  To whom would I recommend attending the course?

 Myself, 5 years ago. 

Another answer: anybody involved in software development, especially testers, programmers, business analysts – and their managers.

Reviewing the posts of this year I see that they were not so much about automation. Actually, way beyond, sometimes. And the focus of my interest has been shifted to more challenging area of exploratory testing. So be it – here’s a new page on my blog – Testing Stories – logging this part of my journey.

(Of course, automation is not abandoned. I’ll keep this content coming out as well – when it gets its turn.)

I’ve taken time to organize ‘Resources‘ page in my blog. For now, it contains pages and resources for ’Testing Challenges‘ and downloadable ‘Mind Maps‘ (XMind format). As for function libraries, I leave them accessible by category.

It’s getting hard to keep up!

I like to write about what I’m learning. It’s not only sharing – I do it for selfish reasons too: thinking of / writing of what I’ve learnt helps in acquiring (making it a part of self) and sharpening (learning broader and wider) the knowledge. I also like to write about what I’m doing, with a relevance to testing and automation.

So the issue is, lately I’ve been learning a lot, practicing a lot, and engaged in quite many things. (And, oh, by the way, also I’ve quite recently became a father for the second time!). My backlog of things I want to write about, or to learn and write about, or to do and write about has grown big enough for me to realize – I’ll have to drop something. With this quick post I want to ‘freeze’ some of them, which I consider most important at this point of time. Here’s my “want to do” list.

1. The course of Rapid Software Testing and conversations with Michael Bolton

• I’ve acquired quite a few things from the workshop, but not as much as I’d want to. As I further practice the techniques I’d like to post a hands-on examples about them in my blog (or on QuickTestingTips, for that matter)
• I interviewed Michael Bolton! Stay tuned for the publications on Community Blog at Software Testing Club
• Michael also encouraged me to write about a few things we discussed, and I got inspired to write about a few more

2. Hands-on examples and tutorials in my blog

• Generating Test Reports tutorial is in progress. Not sure when I post everything what I’ve thought of, but at least one article in this month will be on the topic..
• ..And that will be an example of custom stylesheets

3. Weekend Testing, Americas Chapter

• Both Michael Larsen and I got quite a load since beginning of the year, but WTA sessions kept coming out on a regular schedule. Though we’ve got more missions and ideas than we can pipe out at the moment :)
• We’ve had quite a remarkable WTA #10 session last time, and since then I, unfortunately, could find the time to blog about it. Do read Michael’s experience report
• Evolutionary, at WTAmericas, we’ve came up with a few useful tricks and techniques I’d like to write about. Plus, with that many sessions we collected a lot of material for a follow-up writing. We’ve even got our own folklore which is definitely worth publishing!

4. Mind Maps

• I’ve got quite many of them to share as downloadable resources
• ..and I have an idea of another mini-project and a hands-on tutorial dedicated to testing with mind maps

5. “Hiring Testers” series at Software Testing Club

• Although, it’s on a ‘pause’ for me currently, I’ve got more to write about…
• ..Including an article with a heuristic and mnemonic on hiring

…And let’s stop here, for now :)

WordPress blogging engine has “Stats” plugin. Very useful, helps gathering a lot of feedback. There are also many other plugins, relying on the data gathered by WordPress Stats. Amongst them I use “Popular Posts”.

As many of bloggers noticed last week, there was an outage of WordPress Stats server. This impacted not only site stats displayed to blog owners, but also visible content. For example, in my blog “Past Day Top” and “Past Month Top” widgets couldn’t display any information.

The fix was applied. Site Stats went back to normal. Yet related plugins haven’t. That’s another reminder, by the way, that independently working components do not necessary integrate into a working application.

I disabled “Popular Posts” widgets for now.

The good thing is that Google Analytics script keeps working, and the Flag Counter plugin keeps ticking.

04/04/2011 Update.

The problem at WordPress Stats has been fixed and Popular Posts Widgets are back.

Some details are as following…

WordPress Plugins

Topsy Retweet Button

Provides a Twitter retweet button powered by Topsy. Can also provide automatic trackback comments when someone tweets about your posts.

I see results already. Satisfied.

Widgets Reloaded

 Widgets come with highly-customizable control panels. Each widget can also be used any number of times.

Widgets I use are “Blog Search”, “Calendar”, and “Archives”

Flag Counter

This plugin uses Google Analytics API to fetch data from your analytics account and displays user visits from each country in the widget.

Notes

• If you already had Google account, associtated with your GMail, using this one for your Google Analytics is, probably, not the best idea, as you will have to provide it within the plugin.
• Nothing is bug free in this world. Visitors, whose IPs were not identified, are still reported, but have no flag or country name.
• If you want to display country name, be aware that some long names do not fit allocated space, overlapping with stats data.
• The plugin slightly affects performance but not that much as Google Ads, for example

WP-Archives

Display your archives with year/month list

I believe, it adds value for the blog. Actually, I found Blog Archives page useful even for myself.

WP Creative Commons License

Allows selection of a Creative Commons license for blog content.

PHP Code Changes

• Not disclosing for security reasons :)

Content Update

Blog Archives Page

As mentioned above.

Resources Root Page

As the page is still in “under construction” status, the content underneath has come. Check out Testing Challenges page!

..more updates to come.

Once a year I do something with my blog. Collate, update, migrate, clean-up, migrate, collate, …
About 12 months ago I registered a domain name and migrated my blog from the free WordPress hosting.

I purchased a lightweight theme, added some widgets, put it all together, and even done some fixing on my own. The end result worked for me and, hopefully, fulfilled expectations of my respected readers.

Well, I guess, now it’s that time again. Changes to come.

Now I’m done with the series: GUI Recognition with TestComplete

3 Categories, 10 articles, 8 code examples.

Overview of object recognition properties. Run-time GUI recognition methods. Routine operations with Web Browser window. Code examples and detailed explanations.

Note: more TestComplete content to come next year.

I’ve been reviewing my investigation and code example posts, and realized that some of them are numerous enough to be grouped together as step-by-step tutorials.

Here are the first ones.

Active Directory – Sample Scripts

FileSystemObject – Working with Files and Folders

More tutorials will come this year!

I was honoured to join a team of contributing authors on Quick Testing Tips website that is run by Michael Kelly.
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