The Latest

You can write simple programs to help with your daily testing tasks using Perl or other scripting languages. Here's a primer on scripting languages and programming skills for testers.

The Ruby language has gained many followers recently. Ruby offers many of the same features that made Perl a popular scripting language, but also has the advantage of being a fully object-oriented language. While developing an object-oriented application in Perl might be a bit clumsy, Ruby supports object-oriented programming quite naturally. This can offer many advantages when developing a large testing application.

Cem Kaner tells us why we should not use bug counts to measure testers. Using examples, he illustrates two problems: 1) bug counts are poor measures of individual performance; and 2) the side effects of using bug counts as a measure are serious.

Testers are often frustrated to receive a product for testing that is riddled with bugs. They want to know why some of the bugs couldn't have been caught during development. If only some tests could be run before the code was handed off! Jason Bedunah learned the benefits of test-first development first hand. Here, he introduces a framework for testing and coding that he found to be very helpful, and he gives some pointers on getting developers on board with test-first development.

This paper is based on a recent experience implementing and testing a large new software capability in a
maintenance organization which had not dealt with a large change in some time. The capability was called

Ever wonder how some people seem to find the time to always do that "little extra" to benefit their careers? Have you ever thought about writing an article, speaking at a conference, or even teaching a course, but didn't know where to begin?

Trying to figure out how you can become a more effective tester? That's easy: Become a better bug hunter. This presentation uncovers the root cause of software failure and offers techniques you can use to find bugs.