First page of the Software Testing archive.

Speaking at the Let’s Test conference in Stockholm – May 2012

Posted by Ben Kelly on December 9, 2011 with No Comments
in Everything, Software Testing

It’s official. I’m going to be speaking at the ‘Let’s Test‘ conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Anyone who follows me on twitter will not be surprised to hear that my topic will be The Testing Dead. I’m excited to be attending this conference. It is the first of its kind in Europe and there are a bunch of fantastic speakers lined up. The organizers are accepting papers until Dec 13, so if you’re keen, then pull your finger out and send them an abstract.

If you’re keen to attend, then pricing details are here and you can sign up here. If you make it, be sure to say hi.

Wrote an article for Teatime with Testers

Posted by Ben Kelly on November 29, 2011 with No Comments
in Software Testing

The November issue of Teatime with Testers is out. I wrote an article for this issue ‘What do you mean you don’t know how many were going to St. Ives’  Check it out (along with with heaps of other testing goodness)

BITE – reinventing the broken wheel

Posted by Ben Kelly on November 16, 2011 with 2 Comments
in Software Testing

I’ve been ranting a bit in various fora lately. I very much want to see fake testing die. What do I mean by fake testing? You might describe it as test theatre, in the same way that the TSA performs security theatre. It’s a well-known pantomime that we’re all forced to go through allegedly to [...]

Software testing? Still not going away.

Posted by Ben Kelly on November 8, 2011 with 7 Comments
in Software Testing

So at the risk of flogging a dead horse, I have some more to say on James Whittaker’s STARwest keynote. My previous post was written based on notes of a presentation that I (at the time) had not seen. Rosie Sherry posted the link to the recording of the presentation (thanks Rosie!) so it was [...]

Software testing? Not going away anytime soon.

Posted by Ben Kelly on October 24, 2011 with 6 Comments
in Software Testing

  This one is a response to a blog post by Eric Jacobson, who wrote up some notes from James Whittaker’s keynote at STARwest. I myself did not attend STARwest, so I have only these notes to go on, but as I read them a few things struck me as being odd. Some of Mr. [...]

Pull reporting & Push reporting

Posted by Ben Kelly on October 11, 2011 with No Comments
in Everything, Software Testing

Communication in testing is something that has been occupying me of late. Not a surprise to anyone that reads my material with any sort of regularity. How we report our findings is a massive part of our job and yet when it comes to talking about software testing it seems to be the poor cousin [...]

CAST2011

Posted by Ben Kelly on August 14, 2011 with 4 Comments
in Everything, Software Testing

CAST2011 (The Conference for the Association of Software Testing) was amazing this year. Having that many massive testing brains in the one place for three days though, I wonder how it could have been anything but. What I love about CAST is that there is a very collegial feel to the event. It feels like [...]

Hiring Testers – a view from the other side of the table

Posted by Ben Kelly on July 14, 2011 with 8 Comments
in Everything, Software Testing

It’s been a while since I’ve needed to hire another tester, but that time has once again arrived. Hiring has generally been a lengthy and painful experience and this time appears to be not much different from the last. I generally put the call out to people I know that might be able to help [...]

I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to argue with you unless you’ve paid

Posted by Ben Kelly on December 23, 2010 with 2 Comments
in Everything, Software Testing
as , , ,

I like to engage in good healthy discussion. I don’t mind taking a contrary position or having an argument. I want my friends and colleagues to challenge me. It helps me learn and think in different ways. I’m not a zealot about it. I’m okay with people being wrong on the internet, but every now [...]

Retrofitting Cucumber to an existing codebase

Posted by Ben Kelly on December 2, 2010 with 3 Comments
in Everything, Software Testing
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The new job (well, not so new now, but in any case my latest job) uses quite a bit of tech I’d not dug into previously. As far as source control goes, I’m used to centralised SC like SVN (or even CVS in a pinch), so getting my head around a distributed model (Git) took [...]