Better Software Articles

Making Beautiful Music—The Art of Small Teams

In a jazz combo, each member of the team has a specialty. As the members play individually, they create a tapestry of music that becomes much greater than the sum of the individual contributions. A small development team also works best this way.

Peripheral Testing

Peripheral testing implements a systematic method that allows exploratory testing while maintaining a balance to traditional test case-driven testing. Faisal Qureshi explains how to test without the drawbacks of exploratory testing and widens test coverage compared to following test cases from a test plan.

Controlled Flight into Terrain

Entering a holding pattern on a project can give you the opportunity to gather additional information about a problem. But, sometimes, holding consumes valuable resources with disastrous consequences.

Selecting the Right Mobile Testing Solution

The mobile market dynamics are extreme, unpredictable, and fragmented. There are numerous operating systems and a multitude of platform versions, networks, hardware, and form factors making it a challenge to maintain mobile application quality. Find out how to adjust to the shift from traditional to mobile development—which additional elements are a must and which ones can be maintained.

Crowdsource Your Career

In today's tech-centric environment, there are many advantages to building a social network both online and "in real life." Here are some ideas to help you boost your career, market yourself, and add to your problem-solving toolbox by harnessing this "people power."

Testing Terms You Really Need

Anyone interested in finding a testing glossary that already exists can use some great online resources. Defined here are several terms in common use that rarely or never make it into the "official" definitions. Finally, there are some terms in use that no longer support the underpinning technology and need to be either retired or expanded.

How Do You Know When It's Time To Go?

Whether you are in a toxic work situation, or you feel you are no longer performing effectively, sometimes you find yourself at a crossroads in your job and you have to ask yourself, "Should I stay, or is it time to move on?"

Traditional Test Engineering...

In the first installment of this article, Dr. James Whittaker discussed turning testing on its head—to revitalize and improve the value of late-stage testing. James also discussed ideas behind empowering your dogfooders, testers, and the crowd to significantly and efficiently improve software quality. In part two, Jason Arbon discusses the research and engineering experimentation behind realizing these ideas into new tools and processes.

Turning Quality On Its Head

Arguments that moving testing forward in the software lifecycle maximizes the return on investment of testing effort have been made and widely accepted. And it is hard to argue with the results. Software is getting better. But what if a shift away from early cycle testing toward late cycle testing could improve quality even more?

The Half-Life Of Trust

There is definite asymmetry between building trust and destroying trust. While building trust can be complex and time-consuming, destroying trust can be done in one simple instant.