The Last Keynote on Software Testing
9 likes1,931 views
The keynote by Rahul Verma discusses the current state of software testing, emphasizing the identity crisis among testers who are increasingly generalists with superficial knowledge. It critiques the industry's focus on certifications and marketing, warning that what is replaceable will be replaced if testers do not specialize and tackle existing challenges. Verma encourages testers to embrace their profession's beauty and work towards meaningful expertise to avoid passing unresolved issues to future generations.
The Last Keynote on Software Testing
- 1. TM Rahul Verma A Fellow So)ware Tester. www.RahulVerma.net The Days of Future Present Past The Last Keynote on So5ware Tes7ng
- 2. Not that kind of a keynote. A talk which empahisizes the underlying theme of this conference. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 3. Not even this one. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 4. AGempt at this keynote: © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net So5ware Tes7ng - Some Forgotten Facts - Some Forgotten Ideas - Today’s Mood
- 5. DISCLAIMER Thinking is injurious to health. It causes awakening. Excessive thinking skills. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Industry Wisdom: People don’t read Disclaimers and EULAs.
- 6. Dedicated To Ibn-‐e-‐Insha Who Wrote The Last Book of Urdu (Urdu Ki Aakhiri Kitaab) Inspired me to express frustration via jokes. Just make sure nobody understands them ;-) © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 7. In Loving Memory of My Childhood When I had the honesty To Call a Fart a Fart. And It was not considered a Revolutionary thought. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 8. Your Silence About What’s Wrong in the Software Testing World Is more dangerous Than the Blatant Lies That Surround Us. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Industry Wisdom:
- 9. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Change the Spectacles. And You Might See A New Spectacle.
- 10. A Story of Tasting. ‘a’ is intentional © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 11. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 12. They Realized… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Chefs like their own food. So, they shouldn’t taste it. - Chefs like to cook not to taste.
- 13. That’s how a separate role – Taster was created © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Historically these were chefs. - They knew about cooking
- 14. But, restaurant decided… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Anybody can do tasting. - Why should they be paid like chefs?
- 15. Slowly replacements happened with © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Anybodies! These people didn’t know even about what is a kitchen.
- 16. Colleges… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Had a Chapter on Tasting in one of the books belonging to 30+ subjects Nobody wants to be a Taster. An Anybody.
- 17. Companies… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Anybody not clearing a Chef Test was made that “Anybody” - Taster
- 18. Meanwhile, Tasters, the Anybodies… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Inside: - Felt a sense of failure - Felt they were doomed Outside: - Said they are just like chefs - Took pride anytime a dish tasted bad.
- 19. Industry… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Attempted: - Automated Tasting - Published numbers on how Tasting tools can replace human Tasting by x% (any number they felt was good for marketing) Never Admitted: - Most automated tasting was a scam - Human tasting had value - Most human tasters were bad at tasting, so how come the code they write would do good tasting?
- 20. Certification Bodies… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Made fortunes - Asked Multiple Choice About Tasting - E.g. What does Tea taste like? (a) Tea (b) Coffeee (c) S*** (d) Depends Tasters soon found out that ‘Depends’ is usually the answer. Questions anyways mostly came from books written by authors belonging to Certification bodies or dumps of previous exams.
- 21. “Experts”… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Fought - Got busy in showing expertise - Fought - Coined More and More Terms - Fought - Created fancy names about what Tasters can call themselves – E.g. XYZ Certified Taster, Exploratory taster, Context Driven Taster, Agile Taster, This Taster, That Taster… - Fought - The noise of the above was so much, that their concrete and beautiful work reached lesser and lesser tasters over time. Twitter was a chief noise catalyst.
- 22. A Typical Taster does not know… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net • Recipes • Ingredients • Cooking • Cooking Tools • Challenges in Cooking • Kitchen
- 23. Industry historically confined Tasters to know… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net • Tasting • Tasting Tools • Processes of Tasting • Processes of Cooking (without being in the kitchen)
- 24. What Today’s Taster in reality knows… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net • A bit of Tasting • A bit of a lot of Tasting Tools • A bit of Processes of Tasting • A bit of Processes of Cooking (without being in the kitchen) • A bit of recipes • A tiny bit of cooking • A tiny bit of other bits….
- 25. You know why it’s working? © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Industry expects you to be this… today Hiring is increasingly happening based on how many things you can talk about. Not how well you know them. How long this would continue is the question? And mark my word, when that happens, somebody would give it a name e.g. “Skinniest Lean Agile”, segregating chefs & tasters into specialist roles and it would be hailed as a “Next big thing”, “A revolution”, “A masterpiece” Don’t believe me? Look at the history of Bell Bottom Pants e.g. here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-bottoms
- 26. Tasters… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - More Confused Than Ever - More Fake Than Ever about their identity - Know a little bit of tasting, a little bit of cleaning, a little bit of how to switch on a gas. - Profiles filled with all skills needed to run a restaurant - Designations hardly mention the word taster. - They are an Everybody. They thought it is different from Anybody
- 27. And Questions Haven’t changed… Neither have Answers © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Check Quora, Linked In, other forums. - Questions/Concerns about Tasting profession are the same as they were 2 decades back - Taazaa Example: Today’s Panel Discussion
- 28. Tasters… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - Are “Generalists”, which practically means you can not ask them any detail about anything as that would be TOO Specific. - They are glossaries of names of tools, processes etc.
- 29. Tasters… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net What Went Wrong?
- 30. Tasters… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net I think the answer is Identity Crisis.
- 31. © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Those with a past they are not proud of, want to forget it. They must never do that. while FORGOT_PAST is True: Repeat and Suffer When you enter the loop you think it’s future.
- 32. But That’s About Tasting! What About Testing? © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net
- 33. My Recent Experience… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Interviewed 40+ “experienced” testers (7-12 years) for Test Automation Lead Role in a Product Company - 1-2 knew what is a fixture - 1-2 had used any assertion beyond assertEquals or assertTrue - All were users of frameworks created by others - Knew hardly any test design technique beyond BVA - All of their profiles had passed keyword filtering as well as human filtering of profiles - An average profile listed 25-30 tools, 3-4 programming languages, 3-4 Oses, networking, had taken initiatives, “solid” test automation skills, awards, many hobbies…. - If I asked anything apart from their Product domain, answers were “…well I just….”, “…aa…hmm.”, “…” - All were Agile (who isn’t? J Who dares not to call himself/herself Agile today? )
- 34. Closing Thoughts © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - What is replaceable would be replaced - Most of us entered into testing as it was an easy entry. Accept it. We were never “passionate” about it. We might have found passion along the way. - Stop using excuses like “Looking at code would make me biased”. First Learn coding. Earn this remark, else this makes us a laughing stock. Think about a snake without venom saying – “I forgive you!” - Focus on skills. Find an area to specialize. You can continue being anybody in other areas. - Processes, models are transient. They are not the goal. Blind following is dangerous.
- 35. Closing Thoughts (Contd…) © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - It has become more of a fashion statement to talk about future tech, what testers should do etc - There is a lot of benefit in such discussions, however testers are in general shifting from doing poor testing in basic domains to doing even poorer testing in complex domains - IMO, we haven’t tackled our past challenges yet. We need to deal with them head-on.
- 36. Because It is A “Next Gen Testing” Conference… © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net - So, here’s the actual keynote. Don’t leave a debt of problems for the next generation. If we don’t tackle these problems today, our next generation would still live in the past. Industry opened a Pizza store and is demanding Burgers today. Tomorrow industry would demand Biryani. Stop being a Pizza or a Burger. A rat race is not even a race, it’s an illusion. Be a key ingredient. Know Your Profession. Testing is beautiful. Be beautiful.
- 37. Thank You © 2017 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Found Rash Speaking? Call: +91-99022-83387 Email: rv@talentreboot.com Lagaa Kyaa?
- 38. © 2016 -‐ Rahul Verma www.RahulVerma.net Picture Credits h;p://theconnectedcause.com/wp-‐content/uploads/2013/04/PastPresentFuture.jpg h;p://posiJvepsychologynews.com/ppnd_wp/wp-‐content/uploads/2009/11/dc-‐no-‐brain1.jpg h;p://findmyhero.com/wp-‐content/uploads/2015/05/ibn-‐.png h;p://images.gr-‐assets.com/books/1475412211l/32330256.jpg h;ps://trackolap.com/resources/img/rash_alert.png h;ps://s-‐media-‐cache-‐ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8d/21/24/8d21244176f06ac9f8fdfa18a1664e40.jpg h;ps://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-‐qimg-‐9eda89e8203f1bf7e804ed6d9755V2c h;p://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4224879/Nobody+is+home/77#77 I’ve tried to keep a track of all images used. Please let me know if your link reference is not there, so that I can include the same.