Are you an Excel guru?

[norrahe]

I use it as an alternative to tables in Word. I now know how to make different cells different colours, cool!

WHS - my knowledge of excel extends to entering stuff in it. I then make sure I have a BA on my team who is a whizz with excel and get them to do all the fancy stuff

[Mich the Tester]

I'm surprised it's automated, primarily because I find it hard to imagine petty bureaucrats ceding control to an algorithm. That strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that would have the unions crying foul.

Dutch civil servants love anything that takes work out of their hands; they can spend more time in meetings doing FA.

[Platypus]

I'm surprised it's automated, primarily because I find it hard to imagine petty bureaucrats ceding control to an algorithm. That strikes me as exactly the sort of thing that would have the unions crying foul.

But exactly the sort of thing that ensures that no one is responsible.

[bless 'em all]

On the subject of testing - i totally agree with Mich. We have had the most anal annoying testers at clientco driving me nuts, and I totally respect them and am very grateful for their work. I know that the code produced has been tested thoroughly.

I think that I would rather enjoy working with Mitch. Certainly far more then I enjoy working with the present bunch of target driven wannabe's.

I've told PM's, TM's et al that their current approach to testing (hit and hope) is appalling and they really need to get a grip - even when I've clearly proven that the previous two test phases to mine have managed to expend money and effort to explicitly FAIL to find critical errors in processing - they just consider themselves lucky that I had caught it in time.

I've started on the mantra of 'context' based testing and considering the entire lifecycle of a process - all I get is blank looks.

[Old Greg]

Basic and VBA since 1987!!!!!

Kept my mortgage and bills paid.

And still is.

If you're on a 25 year mortgage, you may want to have another look at that.

[Mich the Tester]

I think that I would rather enjoy working with Mitch. Certainly far more then I enjoy working with the present bunch of target driven wannabe's.

I've told PM's, TM's et al that their current approach to testing (hit and hope) is appalling and they really need to get a grip - even when I've clearly proven that the previous two test phases to mine have managed to expend money and effort to explicitly FAIL to find critical errors in processing - they just consider themselves lucky that I had caught it in time.

I've started on the mantra of 'context' based testing and considering the entire lifecycle of a process - all I get is blank looks.

Some linkies at the bottom. Maybe you could ask your Test managers what they know about Weinberg's systems thinking and how it relates to testing. Or get them to write an essay on emergent behaviour in complex systems and what it means for the predictability of outcomes. I suspect you'll get more blank looks.

Here's something I wrote after a discussion with James Bach, he of context driven fame, about the difference between 'checking', which can largely be automated, and 'testing', which both of us contend cannot;

Nowadays any application of consequence exists in a wider system that includes the company’s internal network but also the external; the internet has made the external network much more complex than ever before. A complex system involves many different actors or agents interacting, and it’s in the nature of complex systems that they exhibit emergent behaviour. ‘Checking’ usually only involves observing the behaviour of an individual actor in a complex system; while that is important, it doesn’t give us much insight into the behaviour of a wider system or the influence of the individual actor on the emergence of that system’s behaviour. We can probably never get complete information on this, and while we may be contractually only responsible for the behaviour of the individual actor, we have a moral responsibility to gain insights into the behaviour of the wider system as a whole. Data has real consequences for people, and it exists in a complex emergent system; if we only check then we are neglecting that moral responsibility. I think it’s only by experimenting, investigating and evaluating that we gain insight into an individual actor’s effects on a system as a whole, and that, for me, is why checking, whether it’s automated or manual or both, can never be acceptable as a complete approach to testing unless we’re testing an application that’s completely irrelevant and lives in its own controlled world with no interactions at all, in which case I would ask why anyone’s building it.

Two books; ‘The Edge of Chaos’ by Mitchell Waldrop and ‘The Quark and the Jaguar’ by Murray Gell Mann influenced my thinking on this matter and I think anyone who’s satisfied to just ‘check’ should read them and really try to understand the importance of what theese two scientists are saying. Sooner rather than later.

James Bach - Satisfice, Inc.
DevelopSense: Testers Know That Things Can Be Different
DEWT | Dutch Exploratory Workshop on Testing
The Real Future of Software Testing | DEWT
Amazon.com: An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition) (9780932633491): Gerald M. Weinberg: Books

[xoggoth]

This is exactly what I mean by people building amateurish systems and then blindly believing what it says on the screen

Agree about the amateurish but , if most users cannot blindly believe what it tells them, what is the point of a program at all?

What we should be doing is replacing everything, including government, with a computer program. Whatever flaws it has in making decisions, it should improve over time, unlike humans who cock most things up most of the time. Who will make the supreme dictator which we must all obey? Microsoft and not Google hopefully.

[Mich the Tester]

Agree about the amateurish but , if most users cannot blindly believe what it tells them, what is the point of a program at all?

What we should be doing is replacing everything, including government, with a computer program. Whatever flaws it has in making decisions, it should improve over time, unlike humans who cock most things up most of the time. Who will make the supreme dictator which we must all obey? Microsoft and not Google hopefully.

Remember the term ' decision support systems'? That word ' support' is important here. I don't like the idea of systems deciding on big things, but supporting decisions. I don't believe that ethical or emotional aspects of decision making can be put into algorithms right now, and even if they could, hmmm....difficult one that requires a lot of thought from people who are much brainier than your average IT manager.

Also, the word ' improve' is very contentious when it comes to systems that decide on something as emotive as asylum procedures or child protection; one person may have an entirely different concept of 'improve ' to another. Who's right?

[Old Greg]

Remember the term ' decision support systems'? That word ' support' is important here. I don't like the idea of systems deciding on big things, but supporting decisions. I don't believe that ethical or emotional aspects of decision making can be put into algorithms right now, and even if they could, hmmm....difficult one that requires a lot of thought from people who are much brainier than your average IT manager.

If it turns out that other early prototypes produce similar outputs to NLUK's, then you may indeed be correct.

[northernladuk]

If it turns out that other early prototypes produce similar outputs to NLUK's, then you may indeed be correct.

I would comment on that but I am too stupid to understands Mich's point. I will assume it is a compliment however