"Iggy Pop" posted the following comment on an article about companies now being receptive to better quality processes:

... We are not 'breaking' the software as we used to. It's more of 'make sure basic things are in tact'. I don't remember last time I spent a week trying to break something. ... The 'art' of testing is disappearing quickly. There are no gurus of testing who spend days coming up with sick tests that would make developers loose sleep at night. I had one director tell me that he was going to shove a broom up you-know-waht during the development for all the agony I gave to his staff. But after the release, great reviews, and pats on the back he got, he told me that he wanted me on every project. Almost a decade later I write install scripts, setup nightly builds, write automation and CM on top of testing. Sure those are important, but nobody asks me to break things anymore. (In fact, people ask me not to break stuff.) WHERE'S THE FUN?

This is a good point. We've gotten better at doing the mundane, day-to-day, basic functional testing tasks, and even at measuring load capacity and some of the simpler advanced testing techniques. But if our years of experience in testing products gives us only the ability to do the simple tests really fast and really well, then we're missing out on something.

Then again, maybe the solution is better communication inside the testing world. We could all do the same type of testing, and when catastrophic failure occurs, we can all update our testing methodology (after much hand-wringing and spirited discussion, of course).

Nah.

p.s. The article is good, too.   9:30:51 AM