Software. Well… It’s Complicated
Shmuel Gershon
Intel
You work with software, and you feel overwhelmed. You test to learn, and the more you dig the more you find to dig. The development of the product is a constant surprise, and you can hear the product manager thinking “how hard can this be?”.
Oh, well, it turns out is can be pretty hard. As systems go, software is a great specimen, albeit an elusive one.
In this short talk we’ll take the elusiveness out and understand that software systems are complex entities that should be treated and acknowledged as such. We’ll learn about instrumental classic papers that can help us get started on thinking about software systems. Come with questions, leave with more!
Key Takeaways:
• Discover how complex software systems lead to complex software testing
• Learn why you need skills that allow you to extract information from empiric experiments
• Learn to accept and cope with complexity and make systems more manageable
Get a copy of the slides here.
About Me!
I am a testing engineer technical leader at Intel Corporation, I test firmware and software, coach teams and help friends. I am convinced that the most significant factor in our quest for quality is people, not features or technology – and am especially interested in understanding (though not always answering) the philosophical questions of software testing.
I’ve been working with an official role of Tester since 2005, before that I spent 5 years writing programs in a role of Programmer (testing is being more fun). I’ve worked with retail software, machinery software, web pages, embedded… My role is what Intel calls a Technical Leader, which gives me the opportunity to devise the testing strategy my team will pursue and invent entirely new ways to test entirely new techs.
It’s been a privilege being able to expose my ideas in peer conferences, big conferences, the BetterSoftware magazine and other venues. My online writings about software testing are at testing.gershon.info and the “Rapid Reporter” exploratory testing note-taking tool is at testing.gershon.info/reporter.