Semantic Spelunking: Exploring Testers and Problems Masterclass

(Aine) #1

A space to further discuss the anything that may have popped up during the online webinar. If you didn’t get a chance to have your question answered or you have more questions after it why not add them here?

Changing the domain you're testing in
(damian) #2

Many thanks to all who attended!

(Richard) #3

Struggling to write my question @dsynadinos so lets just go with this and see what happens.

I’m personally not a fan of testers saying we prevent bugs/defects/booboos, mostly because we cannot predict the future. I don’t know if anyone will ever do the behaviour to trigger the bug, so I like to keep the discussion on the present, I’ve found a bug, right here and now. So I guess without having a lot of feedback from live to, or adding monitoring to track the behaviour that would have crashed, how can we say prevented?

I’ve re-read this and still not, clear I don’t think, but hey-ho!

(damian) #4

Richard,

Thanks for the question! I had to consider it for a while, and I’m still not entirely sure I understood it completely. However, after making a few assumptions, I have a few responses to offer:

  1. “[testers] cannot predict the future.” I agree - testers cannot predict the future. But then, can anyone? If not, can anything truly be prevented (kept from happening), at all?
  2. Building on the last idea: While I agree that predicting the future is impossible, I think that there are ways of developing a high degree of confidence regarding certain cause and effect relationships. Otherwise, I’d question what it means to anticipate, expect, forecast, estimate, etc.
  3. If “I have detected and determined (with a high degree of confidence) that problem X is the cause of current effect Y”, then I think it is reasonable to subsequently say, “Detecting and resolving problem X will prevent future occurrences of effect Y”.
  4. “I like to keep the discussion on the present” I think that’s great! I think there is a lot of value in being aware of and focused on the present, rather than the past or future. However, as Oscar Wilde said: “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” I think that sometimes, considering “what has happened” and ruminating on “what might happen” has value, as well.

If I have missed the point of your comments or question, please let me know. Thanks!