notes and rants
My new blog is at https://www.angryweasel.com/blog
James Whittaker on software testing
A channel 9 interview with James Whittaker is now available on channel9. You may know James from his...
Author: Alan Page Date: 05/05/2008
What is a test architect?
Matthew Heusser recently asked What is a software architect anyway? Matt when on to ask what a test...
Author: Alan Page Date: 05/01/2008
Does GQM Work?
I was typing a response to Matt on his blog to this post, when I realized two things. 1 - the...
Author: Alan Page Date: 04/18/2008
Testing and Quality
I’ve been thinking about testing and quality again lately. Across the industry, testers call...
Author: Alan Page Date: 04/10/2008
What is Quality?
How can such a simple question have so many answers. ISO has an answer, Crosby has an answer, Juran...
Author: Alan Page Date: 04/01/2008
Test automation?
It's not hard to find articles or blog postings on the web talking about when a test should or...
Author: Alan Page Date: 03/21/2008
Managing Relationships
Michael Feiner wrote a book called The Feiner Points of Leadership (get it?). The book has 50 laws,...
Author: Alan Page Date: 03/09/2008
Plane notes
I'm somewhere over the Rocky Mountains on my way back home from New York (via Atlanta...long story)....
Author: Alan Page Date: 03/01/2008
Technical Debt
Several years ago, I was on a product team in the midst of a ship cycle. I was part of the daily bug...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/29/2008
Future Test notes
Futuretest wrapped up today. I thought my talk went well - it was a bit of a challenge for me to...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/28/2008
Big Companies
When I started at Microsoft, I thought it was a pretty big company (near 15,000 employees...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/25/2008
Off to New York
I'm in New York next week - first for Future Test, then off to Long Island to teach a quick class...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/23/2008
Source control for testers - What Changed?
Other than the obvious uses (tracking changes in source code), there are a few uses for source...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/18/2008
The power of the cloud
I finally got around to putting Vista on my laptop this week. My experience with Vista has been that...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/06/2008
What are Universities for?
I found out a few weeks ago that my university would like me to represent alumni of my department...
Author: Alan Page Date: 02/01/2008
Testers are like...
I often compare debugging to detective work. You look at the clues, determine which are relevant and...
Author: Alan Page Date: 01/27/2008
preparing presentations
When I remember to blog, it's usually about whatever I'm working on, or something I am thinking...
Author: Alan Page Date: 01/21/2008
scripted?
The debate over scripted vs. exploratory testing continues (at least among the exploratory testers)....
Author: Alan Page Date: 01/16/2008
ZMB (zero mail bounce)
I suppose I can't talk about ZMB without first discussing ZBB. ZBB is Zero Bug Bounce - the moment...
Author: Alan Page Date: 01/11/2008
overload
I'm tired :}. Although I officially moved into a new position two months ago, work travel and...
Author: Alan Page Date: 01/09/2008
Vacation, all I ever wanted?
I took (and am taking) the final three weeks of 2007 off from work. Well, at least full time work....
Author: Alan Page Date: 12/27/2007
Some down time
I must not be a fan of "hitting the ground running." After taking on a new role within my current...
Author: Alan Page Date: 12/10/2007
More Whiteboard Videos
We just posted a few more videos on TesterCenter (also of note is updated content on the overall...
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/30/2007
Newsflash: misuse of quality metrics
I’ve seen a few posts recently on bad software metrics. What I find interesting is that the points...
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/24/2007
Oracles are hard...
In a previous post, I mentioned that when writing automated tests, the grey area between pass and...
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/23/2007
Software quality at 10,000 feet
I'm returning home from India. I talked, I taught, and I discussed software testing with a lot of...
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/18/2007
Pass, Fail...and other
In a perfect world, tests either pass or fail (ok - in a really perfect world, they would all pass)....
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/07/2007
Mixed Emotions
Almost every time somebody changes groups at Microsoft, there's some sort of "send-off" email. 98%...
Author: Alan Page Date: 11/01/2007
To cleanup or not to cleanup
One attribute typically considered important for automated test cases (or almost any other test case...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/28/2007
Goodbye Fargo
I'm heading back to Redmond for a week before traveling to India. Meeting testers outside of Redmond...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/26/2007
Do I know anything about testing?
Well, if you took a look at the whiteboard video series on the tester center, you wouldn't think so....
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/23/2007
At long last...
Several months ago, I announced that MSDN now had forums set up for discussing software testing...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/22/2007
Time for travel
It's time for me to start accumulating some frequent flier miles. I'm off to Fargo ND, from October...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/16/2007
Thinking and testing
I realized that my last few posts have not really been about testing, but have been more about...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/11/2007
Rewards
A large part of my job can be summed up as "improving people" - either through individual mentoring,...
Author: Alan Page Date: 10/09/2007
Priorities - part 3
I think perhaps the only thing worse than a three-part post is a three-part post with a week between...
Author: Alan Page Date: 09/30/2007
Critical, harsh, and other things people call me
I am often asked for feedback. Sometimes the request is direct, as in "please give me your feedback...
Author: Alan Page Date: 09/17/2007
The best book on software testing
I remember the first time I read a book about testing. It was pretty eye-opening, and I remember it...
Author: Alan Page Date: 09/10/2007
Staying sharp
One of my favorite books on the approach to software development is The Pragmatic Programmer. I...
Author: Alan Page Date: 09/02/2007
Test Talks
Adam asked me to elaborate a bit on the test talk series that I host and coordinate for Microsoft....
Author: Alan Page Date: 08/20/2007
About me
No, I am not the was-a-Minnesota Viking is-a-Minnesota Supreme Court judge! I am currently a Test...
Author: Alan Page Date: 08/17/2007
Mentoring testers
I have a few follow ups to my last post. Adam Goucher, who incidentally has a great blog of his own)...
Author: Alan Page Date: 08/17/2007
A day in the life
We have an opening on our team, and because of this, I've been spending a bit of time talking to...
Author: Alan Page Date: 08/15/2007