Peter Jones has been on some Software Testing training and raised the question of “why companies are unwilling or unaware of the cost of not engaging in proper testing practices” (paraphrased heavily)

I was going to leave a comment, but it grew into its own post size blob so here it is:

> So what as programmers can we do to make this situation better?

Does part of the problem stem from the method under which software is produced. i.e. rushed and time/money constrained. With this in mind developers are inclined to give estimates that err on the side of getting it working. Not providing a framework of validation to prove the code works and assisting the next developer, due to the nature of the payoff of “delivery now”. Costs incurred by the next developer are swept under the “last developer is sloppy” rug, and the cycle continues.

With this is mind management also want the cheapest option now, developers are paid/rated by success now, and most people’s morals are willing to be traded. Maybe “good” developers think if managers are willing to deploy systems with insufficient testing then the developer is willing to milk the project then move on. Maybe management are willing to take this line, been willing to get finical results today and risk tomorrow, rather than risk both.

It also may take developers that have a better understanding of financials and complete project life cycle costs to stand up and push for change. I’ve seen also the situations where the “cost” to fix problems in a live system have bean cheaper than testing up front. In situations that this has occurred, I would believe the errors were derived from specification errors/gaps that would have taking great amounts of testing before those areas where ‘what-if’ed.

So it comes down to management understanding the benefits to be gained from testing, developers committing to providing (unit test) tests for there work, and supporting the testing efforts of other “testers”. I have also found in the past that testing is one the invisible things that get sacrificed as time gets tight, which is where I believe the TDD/XP ideas helps by delivering parcels of tested functionality.

Paul and Elizabeth have now made me an uncle. I spent some time this morning hanging out with them and Jasmin. So here’s a picture of me and the little one.

I now get to enjoy the small child, and when ever it gets upset, hand it back with a flippant comment like “its rubber band is broken”

Blogging from the JasJar. most likely the coolest feature is that my page comes up in a special mobile version. Strangest thing about post via this is that the input box is three lines by 20 characters.

Edited from PC to add picture…

Well I completed my C# personal training at lunch time today. It all just worked. I now have 5 Stars in C#. I’m not sure of the “worth” of doing the training, but I learnt some cool stuff.

Having gotten a few question wrong it would be nice to know the correct/expected answers. There was only one question at level 3 that I thought was subjective. But on the whole interesting process.

What I can’t see at this point is how to do tests in “other” topics? Do they exist and I just can’t see them.

Still not sure why it don’t work at home.

In case the Category was missed this is all RANT.

I have just wasted the last 50 minutes of my life with the junk for a site called MSDN Connection.

If I go to the Microsoft site in Microsoft’s flagship browser (IE 6.0.2900.2180) I can see a screen with the main page that treats me as a non authenticated user. But the Passport icon is in the Sign Out state. If I click the sign out button I get bounced via ~10 URLs back to the MSDN Connection site, in the same state as before. Did I mention I’m using a modem that connected at 44kpbs, so the site loads like treacle.

So I load my normal browser (Firefox) and it works all fine. Now my main purpose was to work through the personal training. (Which I got reminded about at today’s DNUG meeting). It is at this point the Firefox lets me down. Every thing works good until I want to view the next page in the self paced reading. Mousing over the next page button shows some javascript in the status bar, but click has no effect. So I click on the big fat “Training Forums: Get support and support others button” and get a error stating:

You are not signed in to Microsoft® .Net Passport. The page you are trying to navigate to is not viewable by anonymous users; you must be signed in to Passport to view it.

Which is really wired because I was until I clicked on the link. I can partly understand as the URL is now www.aspxconnection.com not www.microsoft.com as I was on the previous screen.

The other day I had a list of issue that I post to the feedback on the aspxconnection feedback form, but I’m not sure this is the correct place for the MSDN Connection related feedback.

So I started looking for a feed back on the Connection site but could only find a Contact Us link that has the New Zealand MS Team blog links, but I’m not really interesting in ranting on there blogs.

Arrg, I just find it frustrating as I see it as a useful site. But it just doesn’t work as you would expect.

I was writing a post before I decided to do more web-based training about frustration with development tools in the last couples of days, but it was getting long and unwieldy, so I threw it away. So now I have no “_these tools suck in this way_” post, and I don’t have and new a Star from the training and its late and I’m grumpy.

<Edited 15 minutes later>

Well I took the second star test in C# without completing the reading. The flow control is real sloppy. I submit my answers and get a near blank screen back. You then have to close this, and reload the original screen. You get no prompting, no results. In fact I’m not sure what the required pass rate is to get each star.

Man odd. For most of the movie I was wondering what the point was. And that’s still how I felt at the end. Most of the time I keep expecting plot development along the standard lines, and each time the movie just kept on plodding on the course already set. If the video didn’t need to be returned today, I’d watch again with the directors comments just to see if they get serious or keep up the off beat humour.

On the watch it again scale, I’d go there…

Firstly is the really interesting idea of “Triangle of Life” for earthquake survival. Makes a lot of sense really.

Tim “the pass the funny websites around” Haines posted this funny flash rag doll simulation to the DotNetUserGroup.

And lastly I just watch the coolest demo of remote control of our mobile workforce with the fantastic MobiControl software from SOTI Inc.

Ryan just sent me the URL and username/password to download the 0.4.8 version of flock.

First impressions is that the app is good looking. Online bookmarks via del.icio.us seems a great idea (and del.icio.us’s one at that), after thinking about RSS reading as an offline activity, bookmark/favourites are a good idea for online storage, because you only use them when your online (spelling out the obvious I know, but I’ve only just got it). I also really like the idea using tags to order/sort the bookmarks.

The blogging features are not so important to me, as I’m not always connected, so the web interfaces of msn Spaces and/or Blogger work for me presently. Especially the draft functionality.

So at this point the value add of Flock is actually the integration with del.icio.us.

I’ve been noticing for a few days that the biggest source of external views has come from a Technorati Tag search for TopCoder. Looking at the results I can see why, I’m number one (out of 17). With only one post, ah… but I do have 34 people linking to my post.

Now I know my posts are great and all. But really 34 people.

What it turns out is Technorati is scanning other people’s sites, when my post was in their Live Spaces “New spaces” list (which I turned off). So I’m getting false links.

So it’s cool to be at the top of a search result, but sad due to the invalid nature of it.

Vodafone has given a new i-mate JasJar to us at work. I’ve just been playing with it for the last 15 minutes. It’s very pretty. It would be interesting to see how well the flip screen lasts.

The lead developer is now playing with it, and it crashed (soft-restart) when he plugged it in the USB sync cable.

I’d quite happily have such a device, but it is quite heavy, so I’m not sure I’d want to carry it in my pocket.