Geekedness, knowledge, experimentation and training
I'm suffering from geekedness. I just realised that I've set out on a mission to learn as much as possible about as many different hardware/OS platforms as possible in as short a time (as possible).
At home I have computers running Amiga OS 3, Fedora Core 4, Sun Solaris 10, Win 2k Pro, Win XP Home and Palm OS 5.
I just visited eBay and saw an SGI Octane 2 that looks yummy - and yes I'm interested because it has Yet Another (TM) OS (Irix 6.5) installed, on a completely different hardware architecture.
But I'll be good;) I'll wait till I've re-acquainted myself with Solaris first.
So what's the point I hear you cry (ie: what' this got to do with QA/Testing)?
Well, it's all about testing with fluency. You see, when I set about designing, writing and executing Test Plans, Schedules and Cases I like the whole thing to flow from A-Z, and this includes configuring the computers to perform such tests on. I find it a real disruption to the art and science of testing if I have to spend hour upon hour configuring something just to perform a single test because of my lack of understanding of a particular platform. Instead, I prefer to put in the leg work first to comprehend the system upon which I'll be testing, and then make use of the knowledge in a practical fashion: "Testing the Ay through Zee as easy as ABC".
My point? Well I've been caught off guard today... I'm here at work, at lunch, thinking "why o why can't I get it to work?" - and "all" I'm trying to do is something simple, a straightforward configuration... something that should just work (but doesn't). Now if only I had time to learn more about it all...
And that's my second point - Test Engineers are far too often expected to just "know" how to do something... "just go over to the server farm and set up an flibbetywhatsit with a whirlywibble and run through the test cases." Far too often, Test Plans and Schedules do not take into account the need for:
At home I have computers running Amiga OS 3, Fedora Core 4, Sun Solaris 10, Win 2k Pro, Win XP Home and Palm OS 5.
I just visited eBay and saw an SGI Octane 2 that looks yummy - and yes I'm interested because it has Yet Another (TM) OS (Irix 6.5) installed, on a completely different hardware architecture.
But I'll be good;) I'll wait till I've re-acquainted myself with Solaris first.
So what's the point I hear you cry (ie: what' this got to do with QA/Testing)?
Well, it's all about testing with fluency. You see, when I set about designing, writing and executing Test Plans, Schedules and Cases I like the whole thing to flow from A-Z, and this includes configuring the computers to perform such tests on. I find it a real disruption to the art and science of testing if I have to spend hour upon hour configuring something just to perform a single test because of my lack of understanding of a particular platform. Instead, I prefer to put in the leg work first to comprehend the system upon which I'll be testing, and then make use of the knowledge in a practical fashion: "Testing the Ay through Zee as easy as ABC".
My point? Well I've been caught off guard today... I'm here at work, at lunch, thinking "why o why can't I get it to work?" - and "all" I'm trying to do is something simple, a straightforward configuration... something that should just work (but doesn't). Now if only I had time to learn more about it all...
And that's my second point - Test Engineers are far too often expected to just "know" how to do something... "just go over to the server farm and set up an flibbetywhatsit with a whirlywibble and run through the test cases." Far too often, Test Plans and Schedules do not take into account the need for:
- Training Test Engineers;
- Allowing time for the Test Engineers to practice what they have learnt;
- Giving adequate time to gain further knowledge through further experimentation.
