Evil Tester

I was working out the kinks in my high level software testing model, and, through a process of speed reading and stichomancy I found that I have re-created an early Buddhist doctrine. In “The Story of Chinese Zen” by Nan Huai-Chin, I find listed the five Skandhas: form sensation conception activity consciousness I was boiling [...]

The notion of personas never really worked for me. “Bob is 35, single and likes kittens…” Blah Blah Blah. Clearly Bob has all the characteristics of a fictional closet psychopath. And that works better for me. “Bob is a closet psychopath”. I can use that sentence to inform my testing. I can attempt to  test [...]

I generally test web apps. And Web apps generally use an email address as the unique identifier. So by test number 2, some of you may have run out of email addresses to test with. If this happens to you, don’t panic! Because here are the Evil Tester hints and tips for getting more email [...]

Have you had anyone ask you a question about estimation? I get asked these types of questions and I suspect that the person really wants answers about how to communicate and justify their guesses. I think they hope that some process exists which will accurately and objectively give them a set of numbers. And by [...]

I think people use ‘standard’ testing phrases too much. e.g. System Testing Testing Performance Testing Functional Testing Non-functional Testing Black box testing Unit Testing etc. etc. The user of each phrase holding the assumption that the reader/listener of each phrase understands the phrase the same way as the user. They don’t, they have their own [...]

Honestly who doesn’t enjoy reading conspiracy theories? Who doesn’t enjoy putting on the “Helm of Paranoia”. I use paranoia as a learning strategy and as a testing strategy. You can too… For learning: Assume that the author of the book lied to you This forces you to do more research Read additional books Read differing [...]

My testing style, attitude and approach has had many influences. I only recently realised that one of them has become very mainstream. "nothing is true, everything is permitted" Words attributed to Hassan-i Sabbah on his death bed. Specifically ambiguous and open to misuse. Perfect for testing. http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1562/pg1/ This went all mainstream with the “Assassin’s Creed” [...]

There exist test ‘concepts’ which, while seemingly simple, have a tendency to melt my brain. Black Box/White Box Testing Functional/Non-Functional Testing Positive/Negative Testing Years spent studying hypnosis and revelling in the ambiguities of communication have left me with an inability to parse language the way I did as a child. I used to have the [...]

I used to consider incorporating techniques from other disciplines into testing as something a little different. It felt right, but since the ‘industry’ didn’t do that, it seemed like a way of individually revealing our personal approach to testing. But testing has a secret history. The building of the Traditional Testing Canon has remained shrouded [...]

Tony Bruce posted some quotes inspired by Taoist traditional writing from The Magic of Metaphor. I have a particular fondness for Taoist classics and I have a fair few translations of the Tao Te Ching on my bookshelf. I love the feeling of simplicity generated when reading. I cherry picked the following quotes with a [...]