Some Interesting software testing resources

December 8th, 2007 | Testing Tips and resources, software testing links

To keep our readers updated on software testing events and activities, I will compile a weekly list of the online resources found. No doubt these resources are quality resources on software testing and you will get insight of software testing industry.

Microsoft last week launched software testing website - Microsoft tester center. James Whittaker Security Architect, Microsoft said “The goal of launching tester center is to provide community of software testers to share knowledge and learn from each other about software testing, day to day job work, testing tools and processes”.

Software testers and developers can view video’s, technical articles. You can interact technical experts from Microsoft via blog’s and discussion forums.

I am always interested reading the expert views on software testing from Microsoft employees. Michael Hunter’s interview series with software testing experts is also a good resource for testers. Interview of Anu Arora - a test manager from Microsoft’s engineering excellence group is the best of this series.

One interesting question I like from this interview is:

Q. What do you think is the most important thing for a tester to know? To do? For developers to know and do about testing?
Anu Arora: Testers need to understand that testing is not just a lot of automation. Testers also need to understand that it is not the other extreme banging the keyboard.

Testing is a highly skilled and sophisticated discipline and testers are the last line of defense for the customer. For the same reasons, the testers need to continually learn and grow; learn new ways to test, learn about the customer and market, learn to be always on the cutting edge of testing.

Developers need to understand that testers are not babysitters. Developers need to be responsible for their own code. Developers need to ensure what they write, works. In the testing language it is called unit testing. As a Test manager, I have been asked once in a while by the few ignorant ones; that if developers did all that, what will testers do? Testers can them move beyond unit testing to focus on integration, systems, scenario and user testing. These are absolutely critical from the customer point of view the one whom we are building this product for.