Ashok's other self

Testing & Doctors - An interesting story

2011-04-27T09:37:00.000+05:30

There is an interesting similarity between Testers and Doctors.
Both focus on "defects that affect the quality of experience". Testers focus on the health of software/system, while doctors focus on the health of living beings. As testers we can a learn quite a few things from a doctor.

Here is one illustrated as a light-hearted story of "Joe the tester" in the "The tale of two doctors". This was published in the eZine "Tea Time with Testers".

A snippet to get you started..

In a big city lived Joe, a typical urban yuppie. He was always focused on a great tomorrow. He worked very hard, partied furiously and lived a fast life.

Life was a blast, until his body decided to act up. On this Sunday morning, he woke up panting, unable to breathe, body drenched in sweat, with a dull pain in his chest. The previous evening was a blast, a celebration party thrown for his best buddy getting engaged. After an evening spent at bowling, they hit the pubs, closing each one, until they could not find one open.

Click here to continue the interesting story...

Would love to hear your comments - Tweet @ash_thiru
Have a great day.

Aesthetics in Software Testing

2011-04-26T09:06:00.000+05:30

Beauty in Software Testing - Blimey! Beauty is probably the last thing we keep in mind when it comes to testing. As we mature, we seem to want self-actualization, doing things simply for the love of doing things. As an individual, I see myself as a a craftsman, about creating works of art.

I wrote a column on "Aesthetics in Software Testing" in the Tea Time with Testers Feb 2011 eZine.

A small excerpt from this..

Software testing is typically seen as yet another job to be done in the software development lifecycle. It is typically seen as a clichéd activity consisting of planning, design/update of test cases, scripting and execution. Is there an element of beauty in software testing? Can we see outputs of this activity as works of art?

Any activity that we do can be seen from the viewpoints of science, engineering and art. An engineering activity typically produces utilitarian artifacts, whereas an activity done with passion and creativity produces works of art, this goes beyond the utility value. it takes a craftsman to produce objects-de-art, while he takes a good engineer to produce objects with high utility value.

An object of beauty satisfies the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) and touches the heart whereas an object of utility satisfies the rational mind. So what are the elements of software testing that touch our heart?

Click here to read the full article.

Would love to hear your comments on this..

Fractional distillation and software testing...

2010-04-27T21:42:00.000+05:30

Fractional distillation is a technique that separates the various constituents in a mixture utilizing the differential boiling points(BP) of the individual constituents. As the mixture is heated, low BP constituent is removed from the top of the distillation column while the high BP constituent is removed from the bottom.

Very similarly, the software under development has a “mixture of various types of defects”. Our job is remove the each specific instance of the various defect types from the software. Akin to how we see a fractional distillation column consisting of multiple filtration levels, visualize test cases as a column segregated into various quality levels, where each quality level denotes a point where certain types of defects(aka constituents) are removed. Quality levels are like milestone markers in the final destination of software-under-development to the "good-enough quality" destination.

A clear organization of test cases by specific quality level allows us be purposeful and enables us to see the quality growth of the system under test. It allows to optimize test effort by ensuring that we minimize back-tracking.

have a great day!

Ashok

Normal and Special occasion - A matter of time.

2010-04-20T22:15:00.000+05:30

Yesterday my younger son who is attending a summer camp had an overnight stay at the campsite. The organizers organized a pot-luck dinner and the parents too were invited for the dinner. The children were having a blast, and it was wonderful to see the energy in each child late in the evening! The children sang songs, danced and then finally sat around in a big circle to have dinner. Each child took turn to go around the circle sharing his/her food with each one seated in the great big circle - it was indeed a beautiful sight. For the parents, it was a wonderful dinner, with a variety of dishes from all over India.

All the children were enjoying the dinner, it looked like an extended family. A friend of mine keenly observing the proceedings commented:

"When we were young, we went back to our hometown for holidays and occasions like these were a pretty normal affair as all relatives landed up at the hometown too. In the urban setting, eating with a large group of friends is a special occasion. On the contrary, what is normal for the today's child was indeed special for us! Buying new clothes, going to a movie, getting new toys, were tied to special occasions in the past."

An interesting observation! As we urbanize/modernize, simple things that we used to take for granted in the earlier days are becoming special, and what was special then is becoming normal. As we complicate things now (though we like to believe that we are making things better with new technology!), the most simple things fade way and become memories to cherish. Alas, the newer generation never encounters some of the simple pleasures!

In a conference in US that I attended last year, the conference person after outlining the agenda for the day, said they have designed special breakout sessions to enable the participants to network. He said "Do not use SMS, Email, Facebook, Twitter...", the audience had a perplexed look on their faces. He sensed that, and keeping a straight-face, said slowly & loudly "Walk up to a person and say H-E-L-L-O. It is called talking". Everybody had a hearty laugh!

Enjoy the simple things of life.
Have a great day.
Ashok

New technology, open platforms and mediocrity.

2010-04-18T21:54:00.003+05:30

I had an interesting discussion with a good friend of mine on the state of programming and programmers yesterday. The discussion started with him showing me his new Android phone, and then the applications on Android. This friend of mine is a seasoned software engineer, he develops code for communication systems (stuff that is expected to run correctly always), he believes in thinking deeply first and then coding. He started by lamenting on the code quality being churned out now, by stating that quite a few applications on his Android phone shutdown midway. He was critical, that now anyone is able to write applications and able to deploy this on open platforms like Android, fostering mediocrity.

The last decade has seen a sea change in technology, languages and application development platforms. The languages and technology allows us to do more and powerful things now, and the development platforms seems to make this easier. This is allowing more people to develop applications individually. The flip side is that the rigor of good code is being lost, as we have anybody with a smattering knowledge of programming, churning out an application. My friend was wondering what would happen if these kind of people get to program large scale non-stop programs like telecom switches. My comment was "Intent of good technology is to make stuff simple i.e. allow ordinary people to do more". This is happening. Now the question is "Where is the boundary - How far can this 'ordinary' person be allowed to go?' . My take is that we need to careful here.

Think about this: Long ago, long distance transportation was by ships and required skilled sea-farers to steer the ship. Then came the personal transportation - automobiles. This allowed anybody to go anywhere (on land!). Also, air planes allowed us to get a distant place quickly, but this requires skillful pilots. What am I hinting? As transportation technology evolved, it allowed ordinary people to drive and transport themselves, but they cannot "drive" the airplanes or ships.

We understand philosophically that scale and quality are more often inversely related i.e with scale, quality degrades. Of course, one can argue otherwise. What is important to note is that our expectations on quality of a product has changed over the years. If a product is cheap, we do not expect much them and therefore are tolerant to crap. In the past however, quality was a "intrinsic" notion and not necessarily linked to the price of the product. Guess the producers had pride in producing the product, which I believe now is not very common.

"Pride of work", "Passion for excellence" are key ingredients for producing good stuff. No technology can compensate for this. We live interesting times, new stuff happens everyday. Our expectations are shifting from "intrinsic goodness" to "economically acceptable good-enough" . This scares me, will we accept mediocrity as a way of life? - More features and stuff, it is OK if some do not work!

Have a great day.

Ashok

Seven consecutive errors = A Catastrophe.. (Improving testing)

2010-04-16T21:30:00.002+05:30

"A typical accident takes seven consecutive errors" quoted Malcolm Gladwell in his book "The Outliers". As always Malcolm's books are a fascinating read. In the chapter on "The theory of plane crashes" , he analyses the airplane disasters and states that it is a series of small errors that results in a catastrophe. " Plane crashes are much more likely to be a result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions" says Gladwell. The other example he quotes is the famous accident - "Three Mile Island" (nuclear station disaster in 1979). It came near meltdown, the result of seven consecutive errors - (1) blockage in a giant water filter causes (2)moisture to leak into plant's air system (3) inadvertently trips two valves (4) shuts down flow of cold water into generator (5) backup system's cooling valves are closed - a human mistake (6) indicator in the control room showing that they are closed is blocked by a repair tag (7) another backup system, a relief valve was not working.

This notion is reflected in the book "Ubiquity" by Mark Buchanan too. He states that systems have a natural tendency to organize themselves into what is called the "critical state" in what Buchanan states as the "knife-edge of stability". When the system reaches the "critical state", all it takes is a small nudge to create a catastrophe.

Now as a person interested in breaking software and uncovering defects, I am curious to understand how I can test better. When we test a software/system, we look forward to uncovering "critical" defects. When an error is injected to system and it propagates all the way, it results in a failure. All failures are not critical, some are irritating deviations, while some can be catastrophic. If a simple error injected results in a critical failure, we are lucky! How the heck do we know that similar catastrophes will not surface over time. Should we not think using the above reasoning? i.e. occurrence of consecutive errors each resulting in a minor failure, ultimately culminating in a critical failure. Should we not have a variant strategy for uncovering such "potential catastrophes" ? Do we outline the strategy that is indeed different for simple failures versus potential critical failures? When can we apply it? Not necessarily only when testing... This thought process can be applied in the earlier stage of design/code... Using the notion of sequence of errors and understanding what can happen..

If your drive in India you know what I mean ... the potential accident due to a dog chasing a cow, which is charging into the guy driving the motorbike, who is talking on the cell phone, driving on the wrong side of road, encounters a "speed bump" , and screech *@^%... You avoid him if you are a defensive driver. Alas we do not always apply the same defensive logic to other disciplines like software engineering commonly enough...

Happy weekend. Be safe.

Ashok

Structure, order, discipline - How it aids to creativity

2009-05-28T21:34:00.000+05:30

Structure, order, discipline -- Grr... People hate it.. Claims it restricts them.

General belief - Freedom encourages creativity, discipline restricts it.

My view - order allows us to see the non-order better!

When information is presented in a neat/disciplined way, it allows the receiver to assimilate the information quickly, aid better analysis and see the gaps i.e the "non-order" i.e rough edges.

I get upset when information is presented in a unstructured way, as I need more energy to sift them and assimilate leaving me with less energy to see the gaps. It is easier to see the "jumble" when anything is presented in "orderly" fashion. "Jumble" is the creative part!

Enjoy

Ashok

Common sense – Is it really common?

2009-05-27T18:18:00.000+05:30

A few years ago I met a CIO of a large manufacturing company in US who had outsourced work of application development to a company in India. When releases were made, he would discover that there were errors in “apparently simple things”. In the course of conversation he said “these errors should not be there, all this required was application of common sense and not great software knowledge – wonder why people don’t have them?”- I am sure that you must encountered many situations like these too.

Let us think now… what is common sense? We say it is “common sense” when we feel that that knowledge is supposedly self-evident; knowledge that does seem to require special training/coaching, knowledge that is expected to be known by all.

When does anything become self-evident? When does it become common knowledge? Only when it is applied many times, mistakes made, reasons understood, solutions implemented and learning gained. When it happens multiple times, we become very aware of the problem, have done deep analysis, and applied the solution so many times that we know it “by heart”. That is when it becomes common sense!

So common sense is not something superficial, but really deep knowledge. So only when the knowledge gained is deep enough, does it become “common sense”. When knowledge is imbibed well that it seems to present in the whole body that it radiates from the fingers, it is called common sense. Understand that common sense cannot be common, in the sense that we understand it. That everybody should know it. It is really deep knowledge and reflects the highest maturity.

So the next time you say “this requires common sense” – think!

Have a good day!
T Ashok

Maturity – What is it after all?

2009-05-27T18:10:00.000+05:30

In my interactions/conversations with colleagues, I have always pondered on "what is maturity"

Maturity to me has been...
… About seeing the large picture and not just the parts
… About dealing with fuzzy information well
… About asking questions that help in understanding

Have a good day!
T Ashok

May 27, 2009

Are we focused enough? Learn using Google Earth!

2009-05-27T18:05:00.000+05:30

I was recently chatting with my colleagues on the topic of ‘focus’. The question was “Are we focused enough in our business?” The answers I received were surprisingly wide-spectrum. I assumed that the question was well understood and there was no scope of confusion in the question. That set me thinking. I thought we were sharply focused on what we do. I believed this was largely true. So why did this variation occur?

My analysis goes like this…

Here is the picture of Bangalore as seen from an eye altitude of 40000 feet above the earth (Courtesy Google Earth).

What I see is a bunch of buildings and some lakes (green colored water bodies).

Let us go to a lower level – eye altitude of 4000 feet. Here is what we see:

Lo behold - I see the indoor stadium and the nearby velodrome! I see that there is a lot more greenery near the stadium. But wait a minute – This is just part of Bangalore, not the whole. Sure enough, the eye can see only this much at this level!

So what do we learn from this little Google Earth experiment?

1. What we see depends on the ‘eye altitude’

2. How much expanse we see depends on ‘eye altitude’

3. What degree of detail we see depends on the ‘eye altitude’

4. The inference that we make depends on the clarity of data and this depends on ‘eye altitude’

See the correlation now…My analysis of “Focus i.e. what we see” was from a certain ‘eye altitude’ (40000 feet), whereas my colleagues looked at the same from a different ‘eye altitude’ (4000 feet). I saw the whole picture (Bangalore), understood the overall picture and then came down in my ‘eye altitude’ for specific businesses, while my colleagues saw just the stadium and possibly missed the rest and then construed that I was not focused enough!

Focus according me is setting the context to the right ‘eye altitude’, setting the size of the canvas and then capturing the image. If what we do fits in this canvas then we are focused enough, else we are probably digressing.

I am a software test professional and to me FOCUS is very important. Within the given limited time I need to check the software and release it if it meets release criteria. Although I would like to test the software thoroughly, it is a daunting task. Hence I need to focus on what is most important to customer, what features are most used. …

FOCUS buddy....

I would like to hear your comments.

Have a great day!

T Ashok