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Process and Personality People tend to gravitate toward what they feel comfortable with. This is also true when it's time to choose a testing methodology. Is a particular personality more suited to software testing than another? In this issue's "Technically Speaking," Brian Marick explores this possibility.
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Action Figures Models can be invaluable testing tools. Unfortunately, they are often difficult to automate. One solution is to have testers use action words, or action-based testing, to express models. This enables them to design action-based models that can be easily automated by a programming expert. Let Hans Buwalda teach you how to employ action words to help you get the job done.
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Ten Ways to Guarantee Project Failure Naomi Karten specializes in helping companies succeed in their projects. In this column, however, she gives tongue-in-cheek advice on how to make a project fail. Read on to see if these steps to failure are part of your organization's modus operandi.
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Site Unseen: Testing Web Services It may only be a matter of time before you hear the words, "We need you to test a Web service." Ebusiness technology is being transformed with the creation of a new type of application called a Web service. Software developers are poised, eager to deploy Web services, but what does it mean to the world of software testing? Read on to find out!
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The Four Most Dangerous Words Think you're ready to implement a fantastic new process? How do you know whether the results are going to be different this time or if they are going to be the same? In this issue, Peter Clark gives you some tips on the proper way for companies to implement new processes.
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Taking Stock of Your Career Assess the state of your career by making a list of the positives and negatives. By creating your dream job on paper you can form a plan to help you get there. Elisabeth Hendrickson encourages you to make the time to take stock of your current career situation.
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Usability and Privacy While most bugs that make headline news are due to careless software implementations exploited by skilled hackers, the problems in KaZaA center around its user interface. This article details KaZaA's application flaws and then suggests ways to prevent such flaws.
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Deconstructing GUI Test Automation Window mapping gives elements specific names so tests are easier to update and understand. Task libraries group sequences of steps that make up part of user tasks when those sequences show up in multiple tests. Data-driven test automation separates the parameters of a test case from the test script so that the test script can be reused for many related tasks. Keyword-driven test automation formats tests as tables or spreadsheets and creates parsers to read and execute the test descriptions. Take advantage of these four techniques to help you test a graphical user interface, and see how developers can make your life easier.
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Where Are the Testers in XP? With Extreme Programming, programmers are taking responsibility for writing their own unit tests. What work does this leave for testers? Some people think that XP saves costs by eliminating the need for testers. Does programmer testing really take the place of tester testing? In this column, Bret Pettichord offers ways for testers to provide value to XP teams.
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Mastering the Discipline of Testing Becoming a master software tester requires training. We are not artists whose brains are wired at birth to excel in quality assurance. Uncomfortable with labeling software testing as either an "art" or a "craft," Dr. James Whittaker makes his case for testing as a discipline to be mastered.
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