The Magazine for Agile Developers and Agile Testers

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April 2011

issue 6www.agilerecord.com freedigitalversion madeinGermany ISSN2191-1320

17www.agilerecord.com

There’sanoldjokeNewYorkerstell:“AtouristasksaNewYork-er,“HowdoIgettoCarnegieHall?”Answer:“Practice,Practice,Practice!”.InMalcolmGladwell’sbookOutliers,hediscussesthe10,000hourrule:thekeytosuccessinanyfieldistopracticeaspecificactivityfor10,000hours,anideabasedonastudybyAndersEricsson(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Ericsson).

Whenandhowdowe, as software developers, practice? As atester,therearemanyskillsIneedtocontinuouslyimprove,from“thinkingskills”suchas theability tocollaborateeffectively totechnicalskillssuchastheabilitytodesignmaintainableauto-matedtests.Inourdailyjobs,mostofusdon’teventhinkaboutpracticing–wehaverealworktodo.Butifwenevergetbetteratourwork,we’llbecomefrustrated,wemaydeliversoftwarethatdoesnotmeetourqualitygoals,ourworkwillbelessrewarding.Wemustlookforopportunitiestopractice.

Inlastmonth’scolumn,Imentionedafewdifferentwaystesterscanhoneourskills, includingTestingDojosandWeekendTest-ing.Inthepastfewweeks,I’vehadtheopportunitytoparticipateinbothoftheseactivities,aswellasaCodeRetreat.Herearemyexperienceswiththeselearningopportunities,andthebenefitsIreapedfromjoiningin.Ihopethesemightinspireyoutotryoneormoreoftheseeventsyourself!

Weekend Testing (Actually, Weeknight Testing)The European Weeknight Testing (http://weekendtesting.com)sessionsarescheduledduringmyownlunchtime,whichmakesitconvenientformetojoinin.Eachsessionhasafacilitatorandamission.Wespendanhourworkingonthemission,individu-allyorinpairs,andthendebrieftofindoutwhatapproachesandtechniqueseachpersontried,whattheyfoundoutaboutthemis-sion,andwhattheylearned.

Inmyfirstsession, IpairedwithDarrenMcMillan(who’sintheUK),andwedecidedtoplanandtrackourtestingusingamind

map.OurmissionwastotestTinyURL,andwetriedallkindsoftestcases:happypath,negative,boundaryconditions,edgecas-essuchasURLscontainingaccentedletters,andvariousbrows-ers.Inthedebrief,otherparticipantstoldoftheirideas,suchastryingURLsinothercharactersets,turningJavascriptonandoff,andvariousheuristics thatwerenewtome.Thissessiongaveme ideas for testingourown team’swebapplication,which isespeciallyhelpfulgiventhatweareembarkingonsomemajorUIredesignandwillneedtodosimilartypesoftesting.

Testing DojosAtBelgiumTestingDays inFebruary, I spentsome timeat theTesting Dojo, facilitated byMarkus Gaertner. The firstmissionwastoexploreGoogleRefine.ThefirsttimeI“testdrove”,weex-ploredtheideaofusingGoogleRefinetohelprefactorFitNessetests. I had trouble understanding how to use the application(whichtomeindicatedproblemswithit),butwegotfarenoughinthetimeperiodtoseetheremightbepossibilitiesanditcouldbeworthpursuinglater.

InthesecondsessionIattended,MarkusandIpaireduptoplanahouseusinganapplicationcalled“PlanningWiz”.Wefounditawkwardthatthewallsandobjectsdidnotseemto‘snaptogeth-er’, andsearched theonlinehelp for clueswhether therewassuchafeature,tonoavail.(YoucanreadmoreabouttheTest-ingDojo at http://www.shino.de/2011/02/19/belgium-testing-days-testing-dojos-report/).

Idon’tget topaira lotatmy regular job,so Iappreciated thechancetopracticepairingattheTestingDojo.Itremindedmeofthepowerofhavingtwosetsofeyesandtwobrains.Sincethen,I’vebeenquicker toasksomeone tocomesitwithme tohelpsolveaproblemorreviewatestdesignorpotentialbug.I’min-spiredtoorganizeaTestingDojoforourlocaltestingusergroup.

Agile Testing in Real Life: March 2011 – Practice, Practice, Practice!

Column

by Lisa Crispin

18 www.agilerecord.com

Code Retreat, BoulderOnenight Iwas checking Twitter andnoticed a tweet about aCodeRetreatscheduledforBoulder,ColoradoinFebruary.Iliveaboutanhour (ingoodtraffic) fromBoulder,and I’veheardsomuchaboutcoderetreats, I’vealwayswantedtoparticipate inone.Iwasratherscaredtosignup,becausetheseareclearlyforpracticingwritingcode,andtheonlycodeIwriteistestautoma-tion code. Still, I want to get better at designingmaintainableautomatedtests,andtheorganizers,includingCoreyHaines,en-couragedmetoattend.

TheCodeRetreatconsistedofsix45-minutepairingsessionsinwhicheachpairhadtodoTDDinthelanguageoftheirchoice,tryingtosolvetheproblemofConway’sGameofLife.Attheendofeachsession,wehadtodeleteallofourcode.Thiskeptusfocused on practicing. Between each session, people sharedthingstheyhadtriedandwhattheylearned.Thefacilitators(Co-reyHainesandChadFowler)circulatedaroundtheroom,lookingateveryone’scodeandmakingobservationsandsuggestions.(You can learnmore about CodeRetreat at http://www.coder-etreat.com/how-it-works.html).

Idefinitelyembodied the “Be theWorst”patternat thisevent.Outofsixtyparticipants,Iwastheonlytester.Mybestprogram-minglanguageisRuby,butI’mnotthatfluentinit.However,I’veworkedwith teamswhohavepracticedTDDandpairprogram-ming for eleven years, so at least I’ve seen it in action; thesepracticeswerenewtomanyoftheparticipants.Fortunately,high-ly experienced programmerswerewilling to pair withme, anditwasfuntobrainstormnewideasforsolvingthecodedesignproblemineachsession.

I learnedmore in45minutesofpairingatCodeRetreataboutgoodcodedesignthanIcouldfromdaysofreadingbooks.Forexample,thoughI’veheardtheconceptthattestsandcodemustreveal intent, Ihadnotpracticed theartofnaming thingswellandseeingtheresultingbenefits.Iactuallygottopracticethesethingsoverandover,withoutanypressureofneeding to com-pletesometaskforwork.

Thefollowingweekatwork,IneededtoupdatesomeFitNessetests. Inoticed theywere fullofduplicationanddifficult toun-derstand,soIinvestedtimetorefactorthemandleavetheminbettershapethanIfoundthem.

Find Opportunities for PracticeNomatterwhereyoulive,youcangetsometestingpracticewithanorganizationsuchasWeekendTesting.Checkyourlocalusergroups to see if there are any TestingDojos or CodeRetreatsscheduled.Ifyoudon’tfindanything,organizeoneyourself–wehavesuchawonderfulAgilecommunity,youcanfindexperiencedfacilitatorswillingtohelpandevencompanieswillingtosponsor.

Ifyouhavetroubleactingonyourdesiretopracticeyourskills,findapartnerwithwhomyoucanexchangelearninggoals.En-courageeachotheratleastonceperweekthroughemails,ques-tions,offeringsupport.

10,000hourofpracticeisalot–20hoursaweekfor10years.So,practiceasmuchasyoucanatyour job, too.Don’talwaysgowiththefirstsolutionyouthinkof.Experimentwithdifferentsolutions.Getsomeonetopairwithyouandfocusondoingthebestworkyoucando.This investmentwillpayoffbyenablingyoutohelpdeliverabetterproduct,andenjoyyourworkmoreintheprocess.

Lisa Crispinis an agile testing coach and practitioner. She is the co-author, with Janet Gregory, of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams (Addison-Wesley, 2009). She spe-cializes in showing testers and agile teams how tes-ters can add value and

how to guide development with business-facing tests. Her mission is to bring agile joy to the software testing world and testing joy to the agile development world. Lisa joined her first agile team in 2000, having enjoyed many years working as a programmer, analyst, tester, and QA director.Since 2003, she’s been a tester on a Scrum/XP team at ePlan Services, Inc. in Denver, Colorado. She frequently leads tutorials and workshops on agile testing at con-ferences in North America and Europe. Lisa regularly contributes articles about agile testing to publications such as Better Software Magazine, IEEE Software, and Methods and Tools. Lisa also co-authored Testing Extre-me Programming (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2002) with Tip House.

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