The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer
You probably say “Turing Test” without thinking overmuch about the source of the expression – or its inventor. We live in a world greatly informed by the insights and perspectives of Alan Turing. The...
View ArticleFrontiers in Virtualization for Quality Assurance
QA led the charge to virtualization over the last decade, often teaching other departments about the advantages and pitfalls. With QA now facing the toughest problems it’s had in 30 years, it’s time to...
View ArticleDon’t Be Perfect
To be a professional at testing requires a balance between technical and personal strengths. If you want to get ahead in your own career in quality assurance, learn how to turn the pitfalls of test...
View ArticleWhy QA Must Have Its Own Databases
Too many test departments rely on the kindness of outsiders for one essential artifact of a test cycle: databases. It’s time to have your own databases, ones that you control. It’s right for the...
View ArticleTake Your Desktop Application to the Web in 15 Minutes
Any desktop application can be quickly turned into a secure Web server using standard, well-tested open-source components. While others have probably experimented with this technique, which requires...
View ArticleNow is the Time for Your Website to Adopt “Microformats”
Microformats had the reputation of being a philosophical plaything, rather than a practical tool. That’s changed in the last few years, though: it’s finally time to join the microformats bandwagon....
View ArticleAgainst Inheritance: A Better Balance for Object Orientation
It’s time to send the pendulum back the other way, says long-time programmer and author Cameron Laird. Object orientation is a good thing — but only when used in moderation. I don’t like a lot of...
View ArticleBetter Bashing: 4 Tips to Strengthen DevOps using Bash
You might know bash as the old-fashioned, command-line, lowest-common-denominator fossil built into Linux. It’s actually much more. Here are a handful of reasons to reconsider bash for automation –...
View ArticleWhat Wayland Means for Developers
For two decades, X has been the foundation for Linux graphics. Ubuntu’s decision late in 2010 to switch to Wayland shakes things up all the way to those roots. Just over a month ago, the official 1.0.0...
View ArticleExploring Programming Languages’ Science and Folklore
Functional programming! Declarative! Object-oriented! Strong typing, static, dynamic! The programming community certainly has put a lot of energy into deciding techniques and methodologies by argument....
View Article6 Tips for Testers to Help an API Refactoring Succeed
When the development team refactors an API, it’s purely an implementation matter, and therefore of no significance to testing, right? Wrong, even triply wrong: testing expertise is crucial to a...
View ArticleDebugging an API Performance Problem from the Real World
I see companies that survive with too few customers, then fall apart precisely when apparent success arrives: paying users start to depend on a product, response times wobble and stumble, and suddenly...
View ArticleHow API Virtualization Enables Smarter Development
While API virtualization is already over a decade old, many developers, testers, and decision-makers still misunderstand it. Virtual APIs create an environment that teams can use to mimic the...
View Article
