behavior, I think, would be to ask "What's going on here?" or some question like that. Or in this particular case, perhaps, "Are you out of your mind?" which highlights the absurdity of the constraints.
Practically speaking, embracing a vision of the best standards is to make a habit of looking at any product and wondering "How would I test that? What if I had to test it without a spec? What if I had to test it in half the time?"
With that in mind, here's a testing challenge for you. Six years ago, I wrote a little Windows program for use as an exercise in my testing class. I still use the program today. I give students fifteen minutes to test it. If I gave you only three minutes to evaluate it and tell me if it's good enough, what would you do? I can think of four different answers that an expert tester might provide…
Think about it. If you want my answer, see www.satisfice.com/answer1.htm.
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About the author
James Bach is the founder of Satisfice, Inc., a test training and consulting company. James is coauthor (with Cem Kaner and Bret Pettichord) of Lessons Learned in Software Testing. He has written many StickyMinds.com columns and spoken at Software Quality Engineering conferences. He can be reached at james@satisfice.com.
