A nice benefit of a conference like EuroSTAR is that it provides you with one or more important eye openers. Things that seem common, that we take for granted and that we do not see until someone with a story opens your eyes. An important eye opener was presented in today’s key note. A personal story about having a pacemaker literally controlling your life. This made the curious owner of this device starting to investigate its security vulnerabilities. She found out the pacemaker is connected and it can be hacked. Something serious to worry about. Besides this, she has also survived several pace maker failures. Perhaps better testing the medical device could have prevented that.
It made me aware that we must be critically and exploratory looking for all sorts of vulnerabilities that come along with the technology we use. The use of technology is so common that, although most of us know about possible threats, we are easily inclined to trust the vendors, trust they deliver safe, trustworthy products and services. But can we? Especially us testers, we should be more critical. By being more critical we help others that do not have the knowledge and skills. The ignorant users. That is our moral obligation.
Eye Opener
One other eye opener to me is that there are many tools on the market nowadays that support test management and test automation. It will be hard to select the one that fits your needs the best. It is like choosing the best talks on a fully packed conference program. That is not easy either. Luckily if you are in a position to select a test tool, the expo offered all the info, demos and lots of treats and free pens.
I have been lucky to attend the 25th version of Eurostar. The anniversary demonstrates that testing as a profession already exists for a long time. The flyers and posters from 1993 that were shown looked soooooo ancient. There was not even an e-mail address nor a website mentioned. It is hard to imagine how they reached out to the test community then. I have been to Eurostar before. Since my first visit 16 years ago and this event things have changed a lot. Test automation and test tools have become mature and widespread. Testing have proved value in software development and the collaboration between testers and developers has become normal in agile and devops.
What An Event
I enjoyed the past couple of days. I talked to nice strangers, heard interesting stories, saw nice tools and had good food. Eurostar is great and Copenhagen is splendid. I go home with a refreshed perspective on testing and on what to expect of testing in the years to come.
The closing of the conference made me think: what will Eurostar look like in 2042, another 25 years ahead? The answer: “Je ne said pas”!
