The Latest

A Baker's Dozen of Dirty Words[magazine]

III offers alternatives to thirteen commonly misused terms and phrases, including walkthrough, quality assurance, phase, O-O analysis, maintenance, function, and estimate.

I II
Software Tester Certification Options[magazine]

Increased demand for test expertise has generated interest in testing-specific professional certifications. Alyn Wambeke sorts through certification options for testers.

Alyn Wambeke
Testing for Exceptions[magazine]

The basic problem with exception handling is that it is difficult! Exception handling in modern languages makes it easy to drastically change the contents of memory. The next instruction executed may be very distant from the site of the exception, and required cleanup might not be done. In C++ the problem can be particularly acute, with lost memory not reclaimed correctly. For these reasons, it's critical for good testing of exception handling that we test all representative sequences of normal and exceptional calls.

Keith Stobie
Twenty Years Ago[magazine]

In comparing himself today to his younger self, Steve Smith says, "I've changed. The work that interests me wouldn't interest Young Steve. Although Young Steve would outdo me technically, I could compete in that arena: Young Steve couldn't compete with me in my new mission."

Steven M. Smith's picture Steven M. Smith
Scripted Validation[magazine]

David Bennett discusses how scripted validation helped revolutionize his organization's software development efforts. This article contains a sample script.

David M. Bennett
Bugs Beneath the Surface[magazine]

Brian Marick uses two bugs to illustrate a small, but valuable, test design tip: Try the next thing that a user would try.

Brian Marick
A Look at Bug Tracking Using Bugzilla[magazine]

Robert Sievers manages QA on the development of Abi-Word, a cross-platform free-use open source word processor. When it came time to pick a bug tracking system, he looked into Bugzilla, the open source bug tracking system created by mozilla.org, and found that the open source development model worked just as well for QA tools as it does for utilities and applications.

Robert Sievers
Re-creating Me[magazine]

Change is the watchword of life in the software world--perhaps no field has grown and transformed itself as quickly as our industry. To survive and succeed in this business we must truly be masters of change; those who have been the most successful are the ones who have been able to use change as a tool and catalyst. Maureen O'Hara describes how change can be an agent for growth.

Maureen A. O’Hara
The Two Faces of Quality[magazine]

Lina Watson questions the conflicting views of quality assurance and describes the distortions that can occur between software process realities and their perceived image in the corporate world.

Lina Watson
Defect Management with Soffront TRACK Defects[magazine]

Margaret Ramsey looks at Defect Management with Soffront's TRACK Defects. She concludes: "If this tool meets your requirements and its pricing isn't out of your ballpark, it's definitely worth considering. With its customizability and ease of use, TRACK Defects is one tool that should be on your evaluation list."

Margaret Ramsey
A Look at Network Testing with NIST Net[magazine]

Gene Sally looks at network testing with NIST Net. He concludes that NIST Net is a powerful tool, allowing you to emulate network conditions seldom occurring in your lab but nonetheless prevalent in the real world. You can reproduce the conditions in which your application fails, easing diagnosis and repair.

Gene Sally
One Size Does Not Fit All[magazine]

For all of the effort we've made in the software field to find the best methodology, the best programming language, the best operating system, the best set of tools, even the best process maturity model—the search for the "best" is often futile. Robert L. Glass urges you to not be confined by a software approach that doesn't match your specific needs.

Robert L. Glass
Faults of Omission[magazine]

Brian Marick is obsessed with faults of omission in software code, and he thinks you should be too. In this Bug Report, Marick describes coding omissions, design omissions, and requirements omissions, and offers some ways to prevent (or at least test) them.

Brian Marick
A Race with Only Losers[magazine]

Collectively, problems related to resource sharing in multi-threaded, multi-processor, and distributed systems are termed "concurrency problems." Concurrency problems are further divided into several major subcategories such as deadlock, livelock, priority inversion, starvation, and race conditions. This article will focus on race conditions.

Dave Cline
A Look at Cost Xpert[magazine]

John Magill found Marotz's Cost Xpert 2.0 to meet his requirements, offer some important relevant program factors, and permit him to change or adjust the factors to establish an estimating window or boundaries, all at a competitive price.

John Magill

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