Know squat about the new software, 2 system crashes and 1 lousy report
Posted by testcrunch on 2nd August 2007
Second day on the new contract and I had a couple of meetings with people and a couple of sessions where within a 2 hour period I was expected to become an expert at the Pharmacist software we will be throttling in the next few months.
To learn how some software works is one thing but to even start to understand the pharmacy side was another. I was told later that the ‘teacher’ in the situation was told to make it ‘very intensive’. Anyway I spent the afternoon trying to replicate the software use I had been shown in the morning, and just about managed to do that. In fact it was better than that as I actually stumbled upon a couple of defects, one where a report was printing wrong data and a couple of system crashes. Of course these were ad-hoc tests, run in a very uncontrolled manner. What I call ‘discovery testing’. Not sure whether that term means anything to anybody else, but I like it. Hmmmm…I wonder what gobbledy gook I could generate if I stuck a question on ’what is discovery testing’ on the Microsoft testing forum, or any other for that matter?
And talking of forums why are there so many people that read forums but never post?
If you look at the number of viewers of posts compared to the number of actual responders, the viewers figure is many times the latter number. Are these numerous viewers too scared to post in case they get shot down by the over-zealous moderators? Could be. But then if you look at so many of the threads they are just round upon round of chaos and confusion. I’m not sure you can actually glean much usefull information from some of them. I’ve had numerous emails from people who actually regard them as hilarious (They are funny sometimes. Ed).
I just don’t get it. It’s as if the people that run these things actually want them dumbed down and just leave a load of confused threads, sometimes barely in English, to perpetrate total anarchy. I read them sometimes and usually come away a bit depressed by some of the threads. I’m pretty sure a lot of others read them as kids read comics, solely as comical entertainment. Maybe I take them too seriously.
Posted in Testing software - watching bits drop off, Forums - yes it is, no it isn't | No Comments »





