Author: Alan Page

Warning – not software quality related, but perhaps even more important information follows.

I am diligent about backups (and paranoid about losing files)…and frugal, so dumping my backup strategy here for those who may be like minded.

First thing to be paranoid about is work in progress. If it’s code or text based, put it in github and push often. For docs, drawings, and other files, put them in google drive, drop box, or similar. Several times in the past few years I’ve had Windows problems that just couldn’t be solved (and this was working at Microsoft), so having backups in onedrive (and google drive today) make it brain-dead easy to pave a machine and pick up where I left off as quickly as possible. Of course, the same method makes it just as easy to recover from damaged hardware, theft, or malware. I attempt to organize my work, so that a sudden and complete wipe of any of my computers will leave me with little else to do other than re-install the OS and apps (and the latter can also be easily automated).

At home, the whole family backs up files on our Synology server. The server has four 3-terabyte drives striped RAID 5 for (roughly) 9TB of storage. All of our photos since the dawn of digital cameras, all of my presentations and docs and manuscripts ever, backups of computers I haven’t seen in years (need to clean those out), and basically any file my family has even slightly owned is on this server. It’s an integral part of our family and family history.

Of course, losing the Synology server would be heart-breaking, so using the backups rule of three (Scott Hanselman blogged about it here), everything (almost*) on the Synology is backed up to Amazon Drive. The price is competitive with other backup solutions ($60 a year for 1 TB of storage) – but more importantly, it’s easy for anyone in the family to access.

When I first signed up for amazon drive, storage was unlimited, but they now charge another $60 a year for anything between 1 and 2 TB. I have a large CD collection ripped to FLAC that also lives on the Synology server. While I still have the CDs, and could rip them again, I’d rather not. But – I’m also too cheap to pay $60 a year to keep a backup of files that are technically replaceable. So – these ~25,000 FLAC files (just under 400 GiB) all go to Amazon Glacier storage, where retrieval (if I ever need it) is slow, but I pay $1.40 a month (~$17 a year) for peace of mind.

There’s enough weird stuff going on in the world to worry about – with the above, backups are something I don’t worry about at all.

It’s been a pretty remarkable 2017 for me – so much so, that it’s worth (for me) a little reflection.

This time last year, I had made the choice to leave Microsoft (but hadn’t told anyone yet). I went into work the week after Christmas (when nobody is there), and quietly cleaned out a bunch of personal stuff (I didn’t know if my resignation would be met with a “walk to the door” or not). Many of my reflections at the time made it into The Breakup, and the feelings that went into that post haven’t changed.

I officially left Microsoft in mid-January, and after a week off, began a journey at Unity that I have had absolutely zero regrets about. It’s been such a good mixture of problems I know how to solve (same movie, different cast), brand new challenges I don’t know how to solve, and wonderful, passionate people every direction I go. My new direct reports have all helped me so much in learning about the people and business at Unity.

In the meantime, I’m super-proud of the direction of the AB Testing Podcast, and how it’s helped me in my role at Unity (and how Unity have given me freedom to experiment using the principles of Modern Testing that Brent and I discuss frequently). Based on our vague plans for 2018, I’m even more excited about where our podcasting journey will take us.

I blogged a bunch of times – sometimes about testing, sometimes about Unity, and sometimes a combination. I also started the Five for Friday series which I hope folks find valuable.

I had a light speaking schedule in 2017 (although less light than the previous year where I was pretty much locked inside of Microsoft). I spoke at the Online Testing Conference, and then late in the year at Heisenbug. Next year is kicking off with three external talks in the first half of the year – that’s a bit more than I’d like to do, but an achievable task.

Back in July, I asked testers to join me in cleaning up the Wikipedia page on Software Testing. I think the page can be a lot more clear and reflect the state of the industry much better. While my contribution has been close to nil, it’s been great to see a few folks from the community step up and make incremental change. I’m not big on resolutions, but I do plan to play a bigger role in making the site a bit better for the masses in the coming year.

I’ve also had a chance to balance a hectic work schedule, kids with homework, and my own health. I began 2017 with a goal to run 510 miles (820km) (10 miles for every year of my age). While I thought it would be a slam dunk; I didn’t anticipate travel, live, and a month taking care of my dad in September. I made it to 480 miles though, and I’m confident that, barring injury, that I’ll make it to 520 easily next year. The good news is that since leaving Microsoft, the combination of lower stress and a bit more chance to exercise has dropped my blood pressure more than 10 points, and I’ve been able to lose 25 pounds (12kg).

I hope everyone reading had a fantastic 2017, and I hope we cross paths soon and often in 2018.

I had one of those meditative weekends, where between solving Advent of Code challenges, seeing the new Star Wars movie, and cleaning my home office, some ideas (sort of) merged in my head.

One part of the recipe was yet-another-discussion on twitter over the weekend (over) reacting to the Test is Dead theme that came out of a few conferences several years ago. For me, I knew what that phrase meant before I saw the content – it means that how software is tested is changing. While I’m fully onboard with the changes, the talk of test is dead, and the role changing causes a large amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) among a lot of testers in the industry who haven’t seen how these changes can improve software quality, and how they can adapt their skills to a new world.

While in my office (during a conscious retreat from the world of twitter), I noticed my copy of Crossing the Chasm, the Geoffrey Moore book with a lengthy dissertation on how people adopt new technology. A quick fact check tells me that this curve, is called Diffusion of Innovation, and was actually first proposed in 1962.

For anyone who has somehow missed seeing this curve explained before, it’s an explanation of how people adopt a new technology; broken down into innovators and early adopters who jump in early (Moore refers to these as Tech Enthusiasts and Visionaries respectively, and as “The Early Market” as a whole). The Early Majority (Pragmatists), the Late Majority (Conservatives), and the Laggards (Skeptics) make up the Mainstream market of a technology.

While I have a vision for how test and quality specialists (described in AB Testing as “Modern Testing”), I also realize that the role of testing is in different levels of maturity across the industry. Modern Testing (which I see largely as an evolution of Agile Testing as described by Crispin and Gregory) is absolutely happening in many companies – but it’s in the Innovator’s part of the curve.

If I squint and look at the curve as “waves” of testing approaches, Agile Testing is farther along the curve, followed by separate teams of (largely) SDETS, separate (or outsourced) Test teams, and finally, low (or lower) skill teams of manual testers testing quality into a product.

The percentages are (obviously) made up, but based on biased and anecdotal information, I think the graphic makes at least a little bit of sense. There will always be shitty testing (far right side of graphic). There’s a large area in the middle that is an area largely (IMO) in transition. Armies of SDETs came and went while I was at msft – and while I still think Microsoft handled both the transitions to and from SDETs horribly, a world of testers as programmers focusing on automation is the norm for many teams.

As hinted above, with change and transition comes fear. The “manual” tester fears a world where they may need to learn automation. The automation engineer fears a world where they may write diagnostics or utilities (or, gasp, production code) instead of automation, and dedicated testers of any kind may fear a world where their work is owned by developers (or computers). As a result, many folks dig in their heels, refuse change, and all but flat out deny that test (and in general, the way teams around the world are making and shipping quality software) is changing.

Instead of yelling, “It won’t work”, I encourage these folks to ask, “How will it work”. Instead of worrying, “Will I have a job”, ask, “How can I help make these changes happen”, or even, “What could my role be in this new world”.

My thinking on the subject is as far away as it can be from worrying if I have a job in the future. I’ve said many times (to listeners, readers, managers, and co-workers), my goal is to make my job obsolete. I’m trying to make my job disappear. Not because I don’t like it (I love it), and not because I’m incapable, bored, fearful or ignorant. I want to build software teams that intuitively know how to efficiently create quality software that excites customers. In the short term, I and my team have skills and knowledge that can help in that goal – but in my opinion, if I don’t remove the need for me in that process, I’m not effectively leading my team and the feature teams we work with.

Embrace change, not fear.

I took some time off from speaking (too much) at conferences over the past few years. I spoke at TestBash Philadelphia a year ago (and also spoke at the Online Test Conference last summer), but 2017 (and, IIRC, 2016) have been light on me in terms of external speaking.

But I’m going to kick off 2018 (and end 2017) with a small flurry of speaking events.

• In December, I’ll be at the Heisenbug conference in Moscow, Russia
• In January, I’ll be speaking at the QASig meetup in Seattle
• In March, I’ll be at TestBash Brighton talking about Experiences in Modern Testing
• In May, I’ll be at STAR East giving a workshop on web testing tools

Hope to catch up with some of you in person at those events.