Testing in an Agile development team

I have been reading up on Agile development over the last few weeks, and one thing that has concerned me when looking at Xtreme Programming is the apparent lack of dedicated testing staff. Indeed some proponents feel there is no need for any specialists at all. The view is that each developer tests their own unit of code.

But, there is much more to testing than testing individual units. There is integration and system testing as well as performance, resilience and load testing. However, the developers feel that they are not skilled enough to do anything except unit testing.

I was happy to come across a couple of sites that to me at least, put forward a more balanced approach to development and testing. One of them, testobsessed.com I have found to be particularly helpful.

burning the candle at both ends

Just sat watching the BBC news this morning and heard the item on the effects of lack of sleep. Must admit that I have recently been working late nights and early mornings (called burning the candle at both ends) especially with the unpaid work I have been doing outside of my regular employment.
Anyway, last night I went to bed earlier and clocked up a good 7 hours sleep, and must say I felt much better this morning as a result.
I notice in my reading on the Agile development methodology (philosophy/approach/paradigm?) that it is stated the team should not work more than 40 hours per week. And I can see why. Performance suffers when working longer hours.

But everyone uses Windows, don't they?

Well here's a turn-up for the books! I have been elected Treasurer of the local Interfaith Council. That is a meeting of representatives of all the different religious communities in the city - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Baha'i.
I was told that it would be best to use a computer with (insert name of popular Accounting package) and when I replied that I had not used Windows system for over 10 years there was general astonishment, and a "well what else is there?". I explained that I used Linux at home for email, browsing the web, office matters like spreadsheet and document writing and I had no intention of going back to Windows just to run an accounts package. So of course, I looked for a Linux based package as soon as I got home. I have downloaded GnuCash and will be trying it out over the next few weeks. I'll let you know how I get on.

Data conversion woes

I needed to contact my utility supplier the other day. I could not get access to the web site as I hade done previously, so I ended up phoning them. The young man who answered could not have been more helpful, and more apologetic! It seems that they had moved to a new database system and this was linked to the web access. Now, with a supplier you can have a delivery address that is not the same as the address that you send bills to. It is reasonable that if one is blank then the same address is used for both.

However, the change to the web interface meant that access that was originally controlled by billing address was now controlled by delivery address, and in my case it was blank. That meant I could not access the web site until the customer support person altered the records on the database.

He said that they had spent a long time doing the change and testing it. But consider this - if you have 5 million customers and your data conversion process is 99.99% perfect that will still leave you with 500 customers whose records have failed in some way.

Never assume

I booked a trip to an indoor ski centre, for my first ever snowboarding lesson. Seeing that I am an absolute beginner, and the snow centre has a main slope and a smaller slope, I assumed our lesson would be on the smaller slope, or certainly at the lower part of the main slope. How wrong I was. The lesson was up towards the higher part of the main slope. And we started by learning to control ourselves using the toe edge of the board. That meant we were facing up the slope with our backs to the way we were travelling!

Working on a system the other week, I decided to use only one of the two application servers, since they were identical machines with the same software loaded, and I only needed one machine for the test. I checked the settings, the test script I had written, the processor load and the network connection, but all to no avail - the test always failed. Over a week later, I tried the other machine and the test took just 2 seconds to run correctly. The machines might have been identical, but one of them had a hardware failure!

And I tell my students always to list their assumptions, and always check that the assumptions are valid. Now I have slipped up twice within the same week. One of the principles of the Baha'i Faith is "Independent investigation of the truth".

Where are all the scientists?

As has become a habit over the last few years, the release of the GCSE results has been accompanied by comment in the media on the decreasing numbers of students taking mathematics or science.

Personally I am not surprised. What role models do our youngsters have? What is portrayed in the very media that bewail the lack of science students? It seems to me that the only role models portrayed are the sports personalities and the celebrities of the showbiz world. Whenever scientists appear, they are often portrayed as badly dressed, speaking words that most people do not understand and frequently lacking in social graces.

Also, perhaps, our concern for the safety of the pupils in schools has led to the curtailment of many experiments in classrooms. Science is now seen by many as 'boring' as much content is conveyed by watching videos. Gone are the times when pupils were let loose with geiger counters and radioactive materials (even though they were less active than the luminous paint used in the wrist watches of those days!), microwave transmitters (er, what about the mobile phones most youngsters now carry in their pockets?), static electricity generators and reactive chemicals. They were the things that excited me and instilled in me a love of science. How do teachers convey the excitement of science, if all the pupils can do is sit and watch?

Marriage is like team work

One of our team left for his annual holiday the other day. Except that it is actually his wedding and honeymoon. As my wife and I have just celebrated our wedding anniversary, it put me to thinking about marriage in these modern times.

Our team had a monthly meeting and the team leader, when asked to nominate the best worker in the team, said "everyone". I had to think a bit about that, as we are so used to picking on one individual that we have elevated it to the "cult of the celebrity" and forgotten, in my view the need for true team working.

Marriage and team work are quite similar in many ways. Both take individuals who have different abilities and outlook on life and put them to working together. In each case, the individuals must learn to sacrifice part of themselves in order to achieve something greater. Otherwise the team will not survive. The common term today is "my partner", but married couples are partners too. In marriage, though, the partnership is made within a very public commitment.