Another classic definition of Testing ....

After reading chapter 5 on Automation testing of all time favorite book on testing - "Lessons learnt in software testing" and this interesting thread of discussion on "software testing" Yahoo group discussion – let me re-define “software testing” or its objective as follows

"Software testing is a questioning process that is aimed at getting information about the software product under test"

Based on what kind information one wants to know about the application under test - testing takes different shape - hence we have different types, levels of testing.

This definition is very simple yet very powerful.

Interviews, failures and being yourself ….

Continuing my tips on interviews, here are some very interesting observations on a job seeker in the interview. Louise of blue sky resumes , makes important points about interview -

• It is not a test where job seeker has to pass or employer to fail/raject a candidate.
• It is not about giving “right” answers and impressing the interviewer but about “being yourself “and giving answers straight from your heart.

He points out that a job that was obtained by some kind of “faking”- will eventually be a disaster for both job seeker and employer - as fundamentally there was a “misfit”.

I see this post carrying a distinct point of view about job interview -- it discourages the approach of “impressing the interviewer”and makes a point to look for a match between job requirements and intersts and capabilities of a prospective candidate.

Louise signs off the post with these words “If they don't choose you, chances are it wasn't the right fit anyway”. This is a practical way to fight blues of “rejection”. I personally have gone thru few such occasions and was rejected for some jobs when I was in desperate need of job. Now when I see those situations in retrospect, I am happy that they rejected me. There was “misfit” in those situations.

Gretchen, a Sr. technical recruiter at Microsoft, echoes on the similar lines

On a totally different line – don’t forget to checkout this post from monster on “exit interviews”.

Ports and IP addresses

These are two things that come to my mind when I think about Security testing/Hacking.
I tend to believe that all security and hacking revolves around getting info about these two things Right?

Honeypots - what are they .....

These days I reading like crazy on security related topics. I am also collecting lots of Hacking tools. Hacking? Still long way to go. I often dream about becoming a white hat hacker.

I like hacking as this is close to testing - it about something you explore in an unknown territory. Hackers (whitehat) have same amount of passion, enthu and curiosity as a seasoned software tester. Tester go for bugs and while hackers seek vulnerabilities. So lots of similarities.

Well While I was reading on security I came across this site - that talks about honeypot.

What is a honeypot - to simply put it "it is a specially and intentionally produced piece of software vulnerability that is open for attack for hackers".
In the article, the author identifies two types of honeypots - one production and other research. This classification is purely based on what you can do with Honeypot.

Typical usages are to monitor the possible attacks, or reaserch purpose.
In another interesting case, honeypots are used by organizations that outsource the security assessment or penetration testing. The agency or company or individual's skill doing such testing/assessment is indicated by "the speed with which they discover that honeypot. Failure to find out honeypot may even terminate their assignment in some cases.

Dont forget to check out this site for detailed discussion on honeypots

I am on to reading another topic of security testing - Keep coming back I shall post more often on security testing on this site...

Shrini

Another quotable quote ...

Here is another quotable quote ....

Testers make informed decisions possible because they think
critically about software. That's big-time fun, and a serious privilege.

Ramdomness in life ....

Randomness in life ....? Randomness some times teases you back in life so predictably that you start suspecting it. I have see many times some things happing - like seeing a person at some place many times ( called co-incidence?) and missing a bus/train regularly at times - things that ought to be random- behave like non-random. May be that is life.

Steven lavy on MSNBC ,while talking about iPod's "shuffle" feature - says his iPod which is suppose to the play tunes randomly, plays them in some specific order. He further quotes Temple University prof John Allen Paulos, an expert in applying mathematical theory to everyday life and says that some times in trulely random events like tossing a coin - it is quite common to get 6 heads in a row ....". He ends the post with following lines which are truely amazing ...

"Life may indeed be random, and the iPod probably is, too. But we humans will always provide our own narratives and patterns to bring chaos under control. The fault, if there is any, lies not in shuffle but in ourselves.'

SD Times survey : Quality is hot so is agile development .....

Read on. Quality/Testing is a real hot topic these days

http://68.236.189.240/article/story-20050401-04.html

Quotable quotes ...

Read these one of the post in "software testing" yahoo group . Really quotable ....

"Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the later than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never." - Napoleon Boneparte

"We are a service organization whose job is to reduce damaging uncertainty about the perceived state of the product."- Bret Pettichord

Shrini

Dev - Test Relation ship

"testing is simply a non-deterministic task the outcome of which is somewhat unpredictable.' this is how Micheal hunter - describes in one of his posts. Dev - Test relationship has always been my fav topic. I am fortunate enough all these years to work with those 'understanding" developers who thinks that dev and test compliment each other. As I hear stories about dev feeling testers are "necessary evils", I feel that most of this due to historical reasons or due to the way some organizations look at testers. Without enough training, career paths - people are pushed to do testing - that is why we have lots of people called testers who made to this title because that failed in other area - mainly development. Micheal further says in his post about true dev test relationship that is based mutual trust and respect

"Every relationship is founded on trust - or the lack thereof - and this one is no different. Remember that you're not just fighting stereotypes about testers ("Testers can't code." "How hard can it be to find bugs?") but also about developers ("Developers write bugs into their code just to make my life miserable!" "How hard can it be to write bug-free software?") "

A collaborative dev test relation is sign of a good project team ...

Shrini

useful info on software lifecycle, requirements management et. al

I know, it is bad, - just pasting some links for info - but I can not help it.

Here is some real good stuff for software lifecycles, requirements management - some project management stuff. I stumbled on this site

http://www.beaver-consulting.co.uk/Links.htm#DOORS

shrini

Apporva's blog ....

Another good blog from test community - Apporva joshi

http://criticsden.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_criticsden_archive.html

Sun's new programming language - Fortress

As I juggle with joining formalities and other initial stuff at iGate - my new company, I am back to blogging. Squeezing some time out, I started off reading some of fav blogs - one them happens to be of Brian Merrik. In one of his posts Brains talks about this guy - Guy Steele who is one of the leading figures of this new programming language initiative from SUN.

Look at this person's Bio - awesome. Reading some his quotes - I am really getting drawn towards this topic of Writing Language specifications. As Brian points out in his post, state tables are great tool to represent state machines.

Another interesting thing about this guy as pointed out in Brian's post is : he has a huge shower, in which he spends about twelve hours a day. I don't absolutely know that, but I deduce it from the time I heard him say he only gets good ideas in the shower.

As somebody rightly said "Successful people don't do different things but do things differently".

This language BTW, is touted to be better than Java - Another revolution in offing? Watch out for SUN.....

Shrini

What would you choose?

As a tester often you need to choose between delivery ( customer satisfaction and quality) and "process compliance". If given an opportinity - which one would you choose and why?

Shrini

Top 5 categories of prime focus areas for successful IVV business

I happen to discuss IVV ( independent verification and validation) with one of my friend and thought following things that are important for a successful IVV business. This is one area that growing where more and more IT service companies are getting into.

1. Process
a. Engagement
b. Contract
c. Model for Test estimation
d. Internal process for test execution
e. Test Automation

2. Quality
a. Metrics - process and tools for measurement
b. how IVV offering quantifies the quality
c. Test escapes - how to deal with them

3. People
a. hiring and team building
b. Training and retaining people with specific skills
c. Sound strategy on avoiding people burn out
d. Management support
e. Strong and visionary leadership

4. Knowledge management and IP
a. KnowledgeBase for capturing bugs, patterns, Execution history.
b. IP for test techniques and procedures.

5. Marketing
a. Branding of IVV offerings.
b. Wide portfolio consisting of Functional, Domain, performance, security, compliance testing etc.

I am planning to add more to this post I work on this

Shrini

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Shrini Kulkarni. I am software tester, currently working as Test lead for Law and corporate affairs IT (LCAIT) arm of india at GDCI (Global delivery center India). I joined Microsoft in April 2003 and since then enjoying every moment here at this great organization called Microsoft.
On the personal/Family front, I am married to “Padmapriya“ and blessed with two daughters - chandrika (8) and Avantika (10 months). I am currently residing at hyderabad - the perl city of India.
My passion - Software testing. Make software testing better and predictable. How to make testers not stumble on bugs but to find them in planned way. Use software testing to make better software - help developers to built the quality when they develop.

Keep coming, more stuff is awating for you.  Writing to this blog is inspired by my buddies Kiran and pratap.

Few blogs I read are - Cem kaner, Bret pettichord, James Bach, Brain Merick
Shrini