Bruce, You're right, but there are things you can do to minimize the problem.
One of the most important aspects of testing is ignorance, and the more the better. <insert jokes here> Seriously, ignorance of the application, how it is supposed to be used, and even the business processes the application supports is an important thing for at least a few testers to possess, so that they don't do what we call "Mary Poppins Testing," which just tests the application the way it is *supposed* to be used in the best-case scenario. Better to do "Monkey With a Stick" testing so you can catch things like back button issues, launching multiple windows and interrupting current process flows, etc, and developers simply cannot do this themselves. The developer naturally devolves to testing the way he has been thinking for months: exactly like the application is supposed to be used. Also, developers think in terms of specs, which is how the application is communicated to them, but as you well know those specs rarely represent the real world use of the application. Even when you are aware of this it's still a hard habit to break, and you can do it correctly to an extent, but never with the perspective of an ignorant user (monkey with a stick). Maybe that's what your manager wants you to do before you give the application to him, but you can only go so far. We do a lot of testing and analysis of various kinds for other companies, so if you want some free pointers then contact me offline and I'll be happy to help. Respectfully, Adam Phillip Churvis Get advanced intensive Master-level training in C# & ASP.NET 2.0 for ColdFusion Developers at ProductivityEnhancement.com -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Sorge [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 4:50 PM To: CF-Community Subject: I need an opinion Hello all, I am soliciting opinions here. I recently finished a few applications that are all tied in together. Once I finished coding and testing, I released it to the manager here for testing. The key word here is testing. I informed him that he may encounter some bugs, but this is why I wanted him to test it. So of course he encountered some bugs in the app. After about 4 or 5 bugs later, he got pissed and said that he is not going to test anymore until I get all of the bugs worked out. I tried to explain that as the programmer I am not as objective as a user, and this is the reason for testing. He said, "Well that may be the new way to develop, but when I as a programmer we did not release anything for testing until we knew it was bug free". I caved in and said that I will test it under every scenario that I can think of. So my question is this: Who is right in this instance? Is it reasonable to expect that a set of highly complex applications that took several months to develop should be 100% bug free? Hell, I encounter bugs all the time on major sites on the internet, and these are being release to millions of folks, not like the few hundred here that will use it. Oh, and a little history. He says that he is getting pressure from his managers to get these app live. When I interviewed for this contract back in December, based on the documentation given to me (about three pages worth), I said that this could be done within the 200 hours they budgeted. Well, after having a couple of meeting with stakeholders, I realized that this was going to take way longer than 200 hours, I informed my manager of this and he was OK with it. So now we have a new assistant city general manager who is a numbers guy and watches his budget like a hawk and apparently he is not happy with the progress. Of course I explained all of this to him a couple of weeks ago, but I guess since he is not a programmer he finds it hard to understand things like scope creep and the fact that the applications were not properly scoped out in the first place. Not only did the initial set of meeting flesh out the inadequacy of the original scope documentation, but I ended up meeting with the wrong person! The guy I was supposed to meet with was on vacation and he was not made aware of what I was doing until I had the first part of the app done and ready for testing. So things changed drastically as a result of this, and added a few more weeks to the development. My impression is that my manager is reverting to CYA mode and since I am just a contractor, he is going to try to lay the blame on me. But then again I may be getting paranoid here. Thanks, -- Bruce Sorge "I'm a mawg: half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJP Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:233459 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
