Write Bug Reports to Last

Encountered a bug report that cited a problem in “the new build.”   That is not good enough, because every week will bring a new “new build.”

PostHoc: Testing Apps that Send Email

I have developed a utility program that is extremely useful for testing and demonstrating applications that send email.  It is called Post Hoc.   As far as your application is concerned, it is an SMTP server, but it comes with a built in user interface to let you see and inspect the email that was sent.  Without any fuss.

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It’s OK to Ship Tests with Product

A product is a product, and testing is testing, and they should be kept separate, right?  The thinking goes that consumers would never want to test the product.  Of course they don’t, but they are not the only people in the field.

Always Test the Software running in the Same Way that Customer will run it

Some programmers have their own favorite ways to run the software they are working on, that is run differently than the way that the customer will run it.  This is evil.  Programmer is not testing what the customer will get, but testing something else.  Is that good enough?

3 reasons that XML should be Streamed and never “Stringed”

XML is a text format, and so it is tempting to handle it with the normal String handling capabilities of Java, but there are several reasons that you must never do this.  XML should either be on the disk as a sequence of bytes, or it should be parsed as a DOM tree of decoded string values, but it should never be in a String in its encoded value.

Improving the Code through Installation Manual Analysis

What can you learn from your install manual that can make your product better?  Below I outline a technique to work through an existing installation manual, and methodically find clues on how to make a software product better.

Email Testing Mode

One of the most challenging aspects of implementing a real system which connects to the email system is being able to test sufficiently.  There is a simple trick which can be immensely helpful: email testing mode.

Use Realistic User Scenarios

So many times I see programmers create user scenario stories that are entire abstract. If you want to know if the software will work for a real use, you need to consider real scenarios.

#28 Avoid “Test Script” Fever

There is a strange propensity among developers to make tests more complicated than they need to be in the name of flexibility.  Tests don’t need to be flexible, they need to be reliable and maintainable.  I have seen this pattern so many times it is worth a mention here to avoid it.  To understand it, you have to consider a specific example.