Vista auto-reboot-for-updates #3

Yet again, I'm in the middle of my morning emailing, and all of a sudden, Vista decides to reboot without warning.  How the hell could M$ ever decide this was a good idea?  I really can't think of anything more frustrating than losing work.  And oh ya... it's been "Configuring updates" for the past 10 minutes now... awesome.  *sigh*

RANT: writing 1000 test cases is not that bad

I've heard a number of times over the past few months here at work things like: "...but if we do it like that, that means I'll be writing test cases forever!"  Testers: do you think developers say that when they're assigned to engineer some feature?  If they do, they probably won't be keeping their job long.  When assigned to engineer a feature, a developer goes through some process to figure out what it is they need to do/not do, then write the code that makes the thing do that, one line of code at a time, until the thing does what they think it should do.  What's so craaaazy about testing those lines of code in their different permutations??  Sure, there's merit in testing efficiently, but that's beside the point.  The point is, you do what it takes to get the job done--if that means writing 1000 new test cases in the next month, then that's what it means.

Words (for all developers) To Live By

In coming up with a presentation for work on characteristics of quality, I've done a lot of expanding my brain.  Lots of defining, clarifying, quantifying, and a fair amount of reading.  This morning I took another looks at Apple's ADC guide for Human Interface Guidelines--particularly the part on Characteristics of Great Software.  I'm pretty sure they'd updated it since the last time I'd been there, as I noticed a link on that page to another page called "Know Your Audience".  I followed. First nugget: "It is useful to create scenarios that describe a typical day of a person who uses the type of software product you are designing." Second nugget: "Develop your product with people and their capabilities—not computers and their capabilities—in mind." Third nugget: "It is not your needs or your usage patterns that you are designing for, but those of your (potential) customers." Read it. Enough said.