Chris McMahon's Blog

So I had a brief conversation on Twitter with Noah Sussman about testing a software system designed as a "Big Ball Of Mud" (BBOM). We could talk about the technical definition of BBOM, but in practical terms a BBOM is a system where we understand and expect that changing one part of the system is likely to cause unknown and unexpected results in other, unrelated parts of the system. Such systems are notoriously difficult to test, but I have tested them long ago in my career, and I was surprised that Noah hadn't encountered this approach of using a "Golden Image" to accomplish that. Let's assume that we're creating an automated system here. Every part of the procedure I describe can be automated. First you need some tests. And you'll need a test environment. BBOM systems come in many different flavors, so I won't specify a test environment too closely. It might be a clone of the production system, or a version of prod with fewer data.  It...

I sent the following by email contact pages to Senator John McCain, Senator Jeff Flake, and Representative Martha McSally of Arizona in regard to Agile Testing Days cancelling their US conference on 13 February. Agile Testing Days is a top-tier tech conference about software testing and Quality Assurance in Europe. They had planned their first conference in the USA to be held in Boston MA, with a speaker lineup from around the world. They cancelled the entire conference on 13 February because of the "current political situation" in the USA. Here is their statement: https://agiletestingdays.us/ Although I was not scheduled to attend or to speak at this particular conference, it is conferences such as Agile Testing Days where the best ideas in my field are presented, and it is from conferences such as Agile Testing Days that many of my peers get those ideas, and I rely on conversations from those who do speak and attend in order to stay current in my field. As a residen...

I have asked the Association for Software Testing to make a statement regarding the relationship of AST with their former Board officer Keith Klain in regard to the lawsuit for fraud filed against Klain by his former employer Doran Jones. The lawsuit alleges that Klain did a number of reprehensible things. What should concern the AST and the software testing community in particular is that Klain is alleged to have been a party to sabotaging and undermining the training in software testing given to disadvantaged people by Per Scholas in New York City. Klain filed a " LETTER addressed to Judge Analisa Torres from A. Goldenberg dated July 20, 2016 re: Request for a Pre-Motion Conference Regarding Anticipated Motion to Dismiss ".  Of concern to the software testing community is that this letter in no way disputes or denies Klain's behavior alleged in the law suit; this letter merely attempts to make the case that Klain's abominable behavior should not meet the letter of t...

To: Tim Western Alan Page Keith Klain Ben Simo Paul Holland Alan Richardson Christin Wiedemann Albert Gareev Noah Sussman Joseph Quaratella Apropos of my criticism of "Context Driven Approach to Automation in Testing" (I reviewed version 1.04), I ask you to join me in condemning publicly both the tone and the substance of that paper. If you do support the paper, I ask you to do so publicly. And regardless of your view, I request that you ask the authors of the paper bearing your names to remove that paper from public view as well as to remove the copy that Keith Klain hosts here .  For the reasons I pointed out, this paper is an impediment to reasonable discussion and it has no place in the modern discourse about test automation.

To the Association for Software Testing: Considering the discussion in the software testing community with regard to my blog post " Test is a Ghetto ", I ask the Board of the AST   to release a statement regarding the relationship of the AST with Keith Klain and Per Scholas, particularly in regard to the lawsuit for fraud filed by Doran Jones (PDF download link) . The AST has a Code of Ethics   and I also ask the AST Board to release a public statement on whether the AST would consider creating an Ethics Committee similar to, or as a part of the recently created Committee on Standards and Professional Practices . The yearly election for the Board of the AST happens in just a few weeks , and I hope that the candidates for the Board and the voting members of the Association for Software Testing will consider these requests with the gravity they deserve.

If you read software testing news aimed at the general public, you might be of the opinion that software testing is done by, and *properly* done by: Autistic people with minimal training. Impoverished Aboriginals with minimal training Impoverished inner city people with minimal training People in developing countries with minimal training The key of course is "minimal training". There is a class of software testers who have minimal programming skills, or system administration skills, or database skills, or any technical computer skills at all. These testers do honorable work and can be valuable members of a software development team. They have been my colleagues; I have helped hire them; and I have trained them in test automation. And I still do that sort of work myself sometimes, although others are better at it than I am. However, their lack of technical skills mean that they tend to have lower status, lower income, and are often considere...

I recently had occasion to read the "Context Driven Approach to Automation in Testing" . As a professional software tester with extensive experience in test automation at the user interface (both UI and API) for the last decade or more for organizations such as Thoughtworks, Wikipedia, Salesforce, and others, I found it a nostalgic mixture of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), propaganda, ignorance and obfuscation.  It was weirdly nostalgic for me: take away the obfuscatory modern propaganda terminology and it could be an artifact directly out of the test automation landscape circa 1998 when vendors, in the absence of any competition, foisted broken tools like WinRunner and SilkTest on gullible customers, when Open Source was exotic, when the World Wide Web was novel. Times have changed since 1998, but the CDT approach to test automation has not changed with it. I'd like to point out the deficiencies in this document as a warning to people who might be tempted to take it...