2022 Learning Challenge - Would Heu-Risk It

Do you work in software development? Do you have strong ideas about how software should be developed and tested? Do you sometimes need a refresher of the things that should be important when testing software? Do you want to hear some suggestions for that? You're in the right place then. This is the Guilty Tested Podcast. Hello and welcome to the Guilty Tested Podcast. I'm software tester Dave Duke and for the past year I've been embarking on a learning journey. I had realized that my learning of testing had stagnated a little bit and that I'd stopped developing my thoughts on new things and new concepts of testing and had merely started repeating the old things that I was already convinced of. So I've been doing this year of learning. I started off by doing a month of Cypress learning, then I read Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin's Agile Testing book or at least I read some of it and then I listened to a software testing adjacent podcast every day in March and then I read some of the complete software tester by Christine Jack Voney, then I attended some of the online conference test bash world, then I read Anne Marie Sharrett's quality coaching book and then I went to test bash UK 2022 in Manchester. I think that's all of it possibly. I think the other things I've done and in fact in that episode about test bash UK 2022 you may remember that I talked about Lena Veebeck's presentation from test bash UK 2022. Her test bash talk was based on her book Would You Heurisket? And that's what this episode is based on. So I read the book Would You Heurisket? The whole book, I know from what I've just described of the rest of my learning year, it's not normal for me because I finished a whole book, what I've done the rest of the year is mostly start books. However, I finished all of this. Is this because the book is less than 170 pages long? Yeah, sure that does have a contributing factor. Is it because the book is written in such a lovely conversational style? Yes, that also has helped. In fact, if I remember and have understood the intro correctly, it started off as a blog, so it makes total sense that it was so massively accessible. The book is a summary of 30 traps, tools and weapons around testing. Most of the chapters consist of a picture representing the trap tool or weapon. I believe they were drawn by Trish Koo. It then moves on to a lovely poem, a short description, an engaging example, and then a related quote. Each topic is slightly up for interpretation, but they include such engaging subtextes. The hive, which is a weapon, the shallows, which is a trap, and gold elox, which is a tool. I'm going to talk a little bit about gold elox. Gold elox is a heuristic for testing, and one that Lennon says it should be the most well-known heuristic of testing. I couldn't tell whether this meant that we should all do this, but we don't, or that it was a well-known heuristic for testing, and I'm just a luddite who doesn't remember it. The poem, and I hope Lennon won't mind me reciting it, the poem that starts the Gold elox chapter is too little, too much, and just right can be tried. On all points were data impetus supplied, a negative number, and one ridiculously high, and also a reasonable one you should try. The idea of having a poem, like she does with each topic, which can really easily lead you into remembering the ideas, is a very neat concept. I think that this is a useful heuristic, and one that I definitely should be using more, and maybe we should all be using more, maybe you all are, and just I'm not. It's a neat way to think about the things you should be testing, this think of one that's a negative, think of a ridiculously high one, and then try a reasonable one. And in fact, she talks about how you might want to think about other things outside of that, as part of this Gold elox heuristic. And that's what the whole book is like, just a lot of really neat little ideas to think about. Small prompts for things to test, tiny snippets of her experience. It's one of the easiest to read books about testing or software that I think I've ever had the pleasure of encountering. You can pick up a set of cards from the Ministry of Testing website and play a game where you recall stories based on them as a prompt. In fact, I think you could use them, and she recommends that you could use them to think about risk, or for test planning, or three-amigo sessions, or just to get inspiration. And I think that that's a very nice element of these traps, tools, and weapons. The book itself and the cards aren't particularly prescriptive. They leave things open for interpretation and adaption. I have yet to use my cards in a session, but I really intend to in the future. The book was really enjoyable to read. I often dipped into it whilst eating lunch or waiting for the kettle to boil. I'd suggest it as something to keep next to your kettle where making a drink call, next to your laptop whilst you're waiting for a script to run, or people to turn up to a Zoom call. It got me interested in different concepts of testing. And though it brushed on technical theory and technical ideas, it kept things conversational. This might be the closest to a testing coffee table book I think I've seen or heard of. In fact, get in touch with me if you've heard of another test-related coffee table book. And get in touch with me and let me know if you've read this book and what your favourite tool weapon or trap from it was. Or if you have an idea for a tool trap or weapon that wasn't in the book, maybe. And this is a really short and sweet episode you may have figured that I'm wrapping it up now. So thanks for listening. That's it from me. This is the last learning episode of the year. It should have been released in November, but as you can tell, it was a little bit late. I'm not promising anything, but there may well be a sneaky extra little treat or punishment before the end of the year. I mean, possibly not. I've not figured out what it'll be yet. But thanks for listening this year. It's getting towards the end of the year. So you've probably had various wrapped related messages telling you all about the different services you use and how you use them. Well, a little bit of inside knowledge for people who don't have a podcast. And I guess almost everyone does have a podcast now. Spotify will send you a little wrapped all about the listeners and your podcast. And I just want to thank everyone for all the listeners I've had this year. It really highlighted to me some of the different places that people listen to me from. Apparently, and I'm guessing this might be VPN related. My top country that people listen to me on Spotify is from Poland. So we've got people listening in Poland, United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, Sweden. Thanks everyone for listening in. This year I've had about a third of my overall downloads and generally not just through Spotify. For over a third of the listens that I've had of all time have come in this year. So I mean, I'm a tiny little podcast made by the guy in his room. And basically this year you've just been listening to me reciting the things I've been learning. And pleased if you've enjoyed it. Apparently I've had over three and a half thousand downloads this year. So thanks for being one of those. This is pretty much it from me. As I say, you might hear from me a little bit. Thanks for listening. I've been software tester Dave Duke. You can reach out to me on Twitter. If that's still a thing, I'm not really on any other social media sites apart from Instagram. Feel free to reach out to me there as well. You can email me at the guilty tester at gmail.com. Okay, thanks for listening. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon. Goodbye.