Five for Friday – November 29, 2019

Oh my – another quality post. I’m afraid I’m starting a trend for myself, but I have a story to share. As all gainfully employed workers in the tech field will tell you, we all have side jobs as tech support for all members of our immediate and extended families. This weekend, my mother-in-law opened…

I’ve come to realize that my answers to life and the universe may vary from others. Sometimes I fall in love with my answers, but I’m nearly always quite open to ideas that differ from mine. In fact, I love the conflict in thought because it makes me re-think the original problem. One such example…

I answered a few questions this week about automating GUI tests. One question was about recommendations for GUI automation tools for non-coders, and the other was about how much time to spend on the GUI in an MVC (model-view-controller) application. The answers were easy. In the first case, I said that they weren’t going to…

I’ve stated my distaste for GUI automation before, but after my last post, I feel the need to share some clarification. I’ve been meaning to write this post ever since I wrote GUI Shmooey, so here goes. First off, let me state my main points for disliking GUI automation: It’s (typically) fragile – tests tend…

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…

It’s been a long time since I wrote a post that wasn’t a Five for Friday, but this may be my last chance to write a decade-end post. Ten years ago, at the beginning of the decade, I was wrapping up a tour of duty in Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence group where I was a Director…