Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 17:38:37 GMT From: John Pustaver Subject: MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Software Quality Group Meeting, Wednesday, August 12, 1998, Classic Testing Mistakes Software Quality Group Meeting Meetings of the Software Quality Group are held on the 2nd Wednesday of each month (with occasional exceptions) at the facilities of Waterfield Technology Group, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington, Massachusetts (see below for directions). MEETING DAY & DATE: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 TIME: 6:15 PM HEADLINE: Classic Testing Mistakes SPEAKER: Brian Marick, Consultant and author of The Craft of Software Testing MORE INFO: John Pustaver, 978-443-4254, pustaver@swquality.com LOCATION: Waterfield Technology Group, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington DESCRIPTION: It's easy to make mistakes when testing software or planning a testing effort. Some mistakes are made so often, so repeatedly, by so many different people, that they deserve the label Classic Mistake. Classic mistakes cluster usefully into five groups: - The Role of Testing: who does the testing team serve and how does it do that? - Planning the Testing Effort: how should the whole team's work be organized? - Personnel Issues: who should test? - The Tester at Work: designing, writing, and maintaining individual tests. - Technology Rampant: quick technological fixes for hard problems. The full paper is available at http://www.stlabs.com/marick/root.htm. The talk concentrates on the role of testing, mistakes made using test automation, and planning at the individual and group level. Brian Marick has been working in the industry since 1981. Until 1992, he worked as a developer, tester, and line manager on various projects, primarily developing operating systems or compilers. Since 1992, he has been a testing consultant, with special expertise in white box testing, teaching developers how to test, and the division of labor between developers and independent testers under different circumstances. Because he dreads becoming one of those consultants who talks about software development but hasn't actually done any for twenty years, he still writes and tests code, sometimes for pay, sometimes as freeware. He is the author of the popular UNIX freeware coverage tool GCT. He is the author of The Craft of Software Testing. NEXT MEETING NOTE: The next meeting will be held on September 16, 1998, the third Wednesday. Johanna Rothman will speak on "Reverse Engineering Requirements to Focus Software Testing." The Software Quality Group holds monthly meetings. Topics covered at these meetings have included software testing, inspections, ISO 9000, configuration management, and demonstrations of vendor QA tools. There is no charge. The Software Quality Group meets monthly at 6:15pm on the second Wednesday of the month at the facilities of Waterfield Technology Group, Lexington Office Park, 430 Bedford Street, Lexington, 2nd floor, next to the elevator. This is just off of route 95 (AKA 128) at the Rtes 4 & 225 exit in Lexington. Take the west bound exit. 430 Bedford Street is on the left in Lexington Office Park just before the Denny's restaurant but you can't make a left here so you have to go to the turn-around a little further up the road. Information about future meetings will be available on the Software Quality Page at http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver. To be on the email distribution list, send a note to pustaver@swquality.com. The Software Quality Group is cosponsored by the ASQ Software Division and all are welcome. Directors of the Software Quality Group are John Pustaver, Region I Councilor, American Society for Quality, Software Division and Bill Nicholson, Waterfield Technology Group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Software Quality Consulting voice:978-443-4254 fax:978-443-6052 pustaver@swquality.com http://www.swquality.com/users/pustaver