Test your application

En liten rip-off av Baz Luhrmans fantastiska låt “Everybody free“.

“Test your application.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, testing would be it. The long-term benefits of testing have been proved by scientists,whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really were. You are not as junior as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

The real test cases in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Performance test.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s test specifications. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Acceptance test.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy.

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults.

If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old test cases. Throw away your old requirements.

System test.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your tests. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their tests. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of tools. Be kind to your fingers. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll go agile, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have tools, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll stop testing at 40, maybe you’ll use exploratory testing on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either.

Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your applications. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Integration test, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read computer magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your developers. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your project leaders. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in Stockholm once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Göteborg once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Complexity will rise. Developers will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, complexity were reasonable, developers were noble and respected their testers.

Respect your companions.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a test idea library. Maybe you’ll have a large team. But you never know when either one might run out.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the testing.”