Software Testing Blog

Today Apple announced their much anticipated tablet computer – the iPad.  With a 9.7 inch screen, the iPad is a supersized iPhone; and it’s already inspiring both love and hate from Apple fans worldwide.  Comments so far have ranged from “I want it now” to “I was expecting a lot more than an XL version of the iPhone with no phone capabilities.”

So what does the iPad mean for developers, testers, and Apple users?  Here are a few thoughts:

Layout now matters for iPhone developers.
Up until now, an iPhone app was one size fits all.  Every iPhone has the same resolution, meaning apps didn’t have to worry about scaling up or down.  Not anymore!  The iPad is a larger device, but it runs the same iPhone apps.  While it can automatically scale up an app designed for the iPhone, the results are kind of ugly.  The bigger screen real estate opens a lot of interesting possibilities, but for iPhone developers now is the time you need to start worrying about how your app will look on a larger screen that isn’t 480×320.

New interface means new challenges.
If it’s not enough that the iPad comes in a different size, now developers will also have a slew of new interface widgets to work with.  Whether or not those widgets will be available on the iPhone remains to be seen, but whatever the case developers will have their hands full making sure their apps look correct on each platform.

Testers needed!
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I think I read somewhere that Apple may be announcing something on Wednesday. </sarcasm>

If you’ve been near any media source in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen the build-up of Apple’s upcoming announcement, which is widely expected to be the launch of their new tablet device.  To watch the drama unfold, check out Wired.com’s complete coverage.

Does anyone have predictions about size, feature set, price point, et al?  Share your thoughts.  Being a software testing shop, we’re particularly interested in what types of apps that will be built for this new category-defining device.  Will there be an entirely new class of apps (and thus, more Apple-related testing)?  Will it work with iPhone apps?  Is it purely a web device?

UPDATE:  Ok, so now that we know more about the iPad (check out Mashable’s iPad coverage… or TechCrunch’s… or AlleyInsider’s), I’m curious to hear what you think — Worth the wait?  Overhyped?  Revolutionary?  Meh?  Weigh in and tell us your take.

Nick Jones over at Gartner wrote a great piece about the current state of mobile apps.  It’s a must-read for mobile app developers and marketers.

His post is written about the iPhone, but it applies equally to Android, Blackberry or Symbian apps.  It also helps to explain why mobile apps have been the fastest growing segment of the uTest biz (phenomenal growth + still evolving market = a lot of testing to do).

Here are a few realizations from his recent trip to his local Apple store that seemed especially relevant for our readers (bullet points are his and the running commentary is mine) :

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When we published our Michael Bolton interviews earlier this week, we forgot to mention that he’ll be speaking at a bunch of  testing events/seminars in the months ahead. So if you’re in these areas and want to see Michael speak in person (as opposed to Youtube) you owe it yourself to attend.

That said, here are a few upcoming testing events:

• “Why is Testing Taking So Long?” – Michael will be giving an interactive talk on this topic at the Markham meeting for TASSQ, the Toronto Association of System and Software Quality, on Wednesday, February 10, 2010.
• The Conference on Free Testing Tools: Michael will be giving a three-day public offering of his Rapid Software Testing course, and will deliver the keynote talk. The event will be sponsored by the Norwegian Computer Society, and will be held in Trondheim, Norway, March 22-26, 2010.

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Stereotypes have been given to just about every profession. There’s the sleazy used car salesman, ambulance-chasing lawyers, doughnut-eating sheriffs, corrupt politicians, drunken pilots – I could go on.

Software testers are apparently no exception to this rule. In fact, the editors over at TestingGeek.com just wrote a piece on some common (and unfair) tester stereotypes. With the aid of a Top Ten list, the authors break down some of the wrong reasons why people enter the field of software testing. You should go check it out.

Of course, if you’re at all familiar with the uTest community – and if you’ve spent any time chatting in our online Forums – you’d know that software testers are an especially difficult bunch to pigeonhole. There’s an amazing cross-section of backgrounds, personalities, ages and experience levels. In other words, there’s nothing typical about them! You can read our Tester Spotlights if you don’t believe us.

Anyway, here are a few of the “wrong reasons” they listed, in no particular order:

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Earlier this week, we published our three-part interview with Michael Bolton.  This was the latest installment in our monthly Testing The Limits series, in which we sit down with luminaries from the worlds of testing, development, crowdsourcing or startup life.  As part of this discussion, we asked Michael for his take on the issue of testing certifications (as we’ve done with Matt Heusser and James Bach in previous months).

In response to what she felt was “cert-bashing,” Charity Stoner of ProtoTest has written a post defending test certifications.  Since we always encourage civil discourse and open-minded debate — and since the purpose of  the Testing The Limits series is to offer up different perspectives from around the world of software — I wanted to shine a light on this post.

What do you think about test certifications?  Do they provide testers with a toolkit that complements their experience and adds real value?  Are they a marketing mechanism that limits what it means to be a professional software tester?  Or is it somewhere in the middle?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Around 1:00 PM EST today, Microsoft will release an emergency patch for all versions of Internet Explorer.  They’re issuing the patch today instead of on their usual timeline because of the recent security issues involving Google.  It seems that hackers were able to target a previously unknown bug in IE as part of their attack against several accounts with Google.  ZDNet quotes a spokesman from Microsoft saying:

“(W)e will be releasing MS10-002  (on) January 21, 2010. We are planning to release the update as close to 10:00 a.m. PST as possible. This is a standard cumulative update, accelerated from our regularly scheduled February release, for Internet Explorer with an aggregate severity rating of Critical. It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and a small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities. Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicized. We recommend that customers install the update as soon as it is available. For customers using automatic updates, this update will automatically be applied once it is released.”

If you run Internet Explorer (and statistics say that 62% of you do) run Microsoft Update a little after 10:00 AM PST and make sure you grab this update.  And if you run an IT department, you should consider deploying the patch to your users as soon as you can.

In the third and final part of the Michael Bolton trilogy, we cover advice for new testers, his hypothetical banishment from Software Land, the blogs he reads and more. Did you miss our earlier interviews? Here’s Part I and Part II.

uTest: Hypothetical: You’ve been banished from testing – nay, ALL software-related activities – for the rest of your days. What will you to earn a living?  What hobbies would you pick up to fill the intellectual void?

MB: Who knows?  For fun, I’d keep playing mandolin, probably. Teach, maybe. Write. I’ve worked in theatre stage management, been a book-keeper, tended bar, worked in a comedy club. In high school I worked in mail rooms during the summer. Whatever I’ve picked up in life, it was because something needed to be done and I was there to do it.  If it didn’t seem like much at first, I started to learn about it quickly. When you invest a little bit of effort to figure out your job, you learn how to makes it faster and better and more interesting. It turns into this great feedback loop. Any job can be more fun when you set out to master it.

uTest: Tell our testing community something about you that your most avid readers don’t know.

MB: While walking through the woods on an island near Vancouver recently, I found myself being quiet and brief, which I like from time to time. Practically nobody knows that.

Lots of people probably don’t know how much I’m eager to help people out. All of my work—courses, articles, conference presentations, this interview—comes with lifetime free technical support. Have a question? Just ask. I might not answer right away—supporting the family with paying work takes precedence over supporting the community—but I’ve never knowingly turned anybody down, so if I don’t answer right away, be persistent. James Bach makes the same offer, by the way. We’ve found that it’s a great way not only to help people, but also to explore problems and come up with solutions and learn things that can help our clients.

uTest: If you were talking to a newbie tester, what advice would you give him or her to set their professional journey off on the right foot?  How about for a 10-year veteran tester?

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In the first part of our interview with Michael Bolton, we grilled him on the emergence of the Weekend Testers, sensible metrics, Michael Bolton the pop star and a bunch of other topics. In part “deux” of our interview, we tackle the necessity of tester passion, how emotions affect testing, and the greatest threats to the profession. Check back tomorrow for the final segment.

uTest: There’s a lot of passion amongst testing thought leaders about the best way to test, or the best way to manage or train testers.  Often that passion overflows into heated debates.  How can this passion best be channeled to improve the state of testing?

MB: First of all, we should welcome debate, and we should welcome skilled argumentation as part of the art of construction and practice of persuasion. I’ve found, though, that it helps to remember that we’re exploring and challenging ideas. That means it’s good not to get too personally invested in certain ideas, because we’re always learning more, and because changes in context can mean big changes in what needs to be done.

That said, there are some ideas that seem robust for me. I believe that it’s unethical to dumb down people or the work that they do. I believe that we should focus our craft on learning, and learning how to learn rapidly. How can we improve the state of testing? By recognizing that software development is a web of people who are related in service to each other. That means putting people and social issues first. Get that right, and everything else will follow.

Suggestions are cool.  Standards are something else.  No group should be dictating to other people how they must test unless there are compelling human health and safety reasons for it. Do you really believe that the standards people know anything useful about your business? That the force of government-supported regulation, created by busybodies, should weigh on how you do your daily work? And if your answer is No, what are you going to do to get it stopped?

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We’re thrilled to have Michael Bolton as the latest victim of our Testing the Limits series. As the founder of DevelopSense, Michael has traveled the world teaching the craft of software testing to businesses and individuals alike. Since 2005, he has specialized in courses on Rapid Software Testing – which he co-authored with James Bach. Michael is also a prolific writer, and his publications include hundreds of articles, essays and columns. Aside from his blog, you can keep tabs on his latest work through Twitter.

In Part I of the “trilogy” we discuss the Weekend Testers, testing abroad, how numbers can enslave managers, and of course, his pop-star namesake.

uTest: You’ve been a thought leader in the testing space for a while now, but people still seem to get you confused with Michael Bolton (the singer) on Twitter. Ever thought about creating a tester alias? Or have you considered asking him to change his name since “he’s the one that sucks.” Assuming you (and our readers) have seen Office Space, I bet this joke never gets old.

MB: Yeah, it never gets old.  Try renting a car with this name.

A couple of things on that. First, Office Space captures very well what it’s like to have my name. Second, it’s not his real name; he changed it already. Way back when, before Office Space, I was working in tech support at Quarterdeck Canada.  American callers would occasionally turn north when there were long phone queues in Santa Monica. On one call, when I introduced myself to the customer, he laughed. “Really? That’s your real name?” “Yes, really,” I said, expecting one of the usual jokes. He said, “You know, it isn’t his real name. I used to be his bass player.”  The singer’s real name is Bolotin, but according to the bass player, there was no hope that radio DJs would ever pronounce “Bolotin” right, so he changed it.

uTest: We recently interviewed your friend and colleague James Bach, who had high praise for a group called the Weekend Testers. Can you give our readers a quick recap of what this group does, and whether or not you’re on board with their testing philosophy?

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