ITauthor Podcast

Test Manager Richard Paterson joins Graham Campbell and me over lunchtime sandwiches in a rather noisy office to talk about software testing.

Technical writers in a software development department often feel like third-class citizens, with programmers as the top-dogs and testers being granted second-class status. This engenders a certain camaraderie between fellow poor relations, testers and tech writers, filling, as they do, roles that are sometimes viewed as subordinate or auxiliary to the majority party within the development department. The work of testers and tech writers often starts at around the same time, and both roles can be subject to "ship early" pressure to keep the time available to them to a minimum.

But like tech writers, testers - rightly - believe that what they do is a crucial, if undervalued, function for the creation of quality software products.

Amongst other things, I ask Richard:

• What is software testing?
• Why do we need testers? (Can't programmers just test their own code?)
• What's the difference between: unit tests, integration tests, regression tests, functional tests, user acceptance tests, lean testing ...?
• How do testers and programmers get on? (Don't programmers get really irritated by testers finding bugs in software the programmer thought was working fine?)
• Why can't we introduce automated testing and save on all the money we're paying all those testers?
• Are technical writers as useful to testers as testers are to technical writers?
• Who'd be a tester?

Got any thoughts on the matter? Leave a comment below.

For something completely different, have a read of Richard's blog:
ROCKETBOOTKID AND BOOSTERBOY'S PALACE OF RIGHTEOUS JUSTICE.

The music I play at the beginning and end of the show is by Amplifico. You can hear more of their music at Podshow.

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