{"id":404,"date":"2012-01-27T18:19:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T02:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=404"},"modified":"2012-01-27T18:19:16","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T02:19:16","slug":"the-skeptics-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/the-skeptics-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"The Skeptics Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

For testers, being skeptical is generally a good thing. When someone says, \u201cOur application doesn\u2019t have any reliability errors\u201d, I, for one, am skeptical. I\u2019ll poke and prod and (usually) find something they haven\u2019t thought about. There\u2019s power in skepticism. Last year, I led a team of testers in performing code reviews of production code. My hypothesis was, that while developers perform code reviews thinking, \u201cDoes the code do what it\u2019s supposed to do\u201d, testers think, \u201cIn what conditions will the code not <\/em>do what its supposed to do. You can insert the comment about testers being pessimistic (or overly pessimistic) here, but in general, the tester mindset is to question statements that seem\u2026well, questionable<\/em>. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s easy to go overboard with skepticism. Time and time again, I hear good testers apply their skepticism broadly and liberally. Some (paraphrased) quotes I\u2019ve heard recently include:<\/p>\n