The Iceberg of Inferred Acceptance Criteria
Nov 25, 2022
When refining a ticket at Peppy (and likely lots of other places) we come up with Acceptance Criteria, deemed to be “The stuff that needs to be done in order to ship”. A piece of work must meet these criteria in order to ship.
They’re inherently incomplete. They can’t possibly list everything.
If a piece of software met the acceptance criteria, but damaged a user’s device while doing it, we wouldn’t ship it.
...
➦
Security Testing: Everything but the pentest
May 11, 2021
When most think of a security test, it conjures images of Hollywood-style hacking. For those who work in the software industry, it still conjures images of an employee or contractor attempting to hack “for good” so that the flaws can be fixed before a bad actor finds them. I want to talk about the other stuff. The rest of the work that goes into testing for security that isn’t a tool-assisted investigation of a live (or live-like) deployment of the software.
...
➦
Celebrating the Heterogeneity of Engineering
May 3, 2021
Alternative titles I considered: “The Argument Against Knowledge Sharing”, and “Yet Another Post About Story Points”.
I was reading an excellent introductory article about collective computing recently, where it talked through the modes and advantages, about how it learned and adapted and so on. One of the key parts was about how a highly successful network was not one of identical nodes with identical sensors and capabilities, but one where individual nodes had different capabilities and could bring those to bear on different tasks, improving the overall achievement of the network.
...
➦
Remote Work & The Pandemic
Mar 24, 2021
Yeah, I know, another blog post about how someone sits at home on a laptop because everyone is scared of other humans.
But wait!
I was at home already. Surevine (my employer) is and always has been a Remote First company. There is no office, no building or door with our logo on it (which is frankly a shame, because the logo is awesome - we were doing green back when blue logos were still all the rage).
...
➦
Three Things I Learned This Week - 29th Feb 2020
Feb 29, 2020
To see why I write these, see my first post in this series.
This week:
Two weeks ago, Kristin Jackovny wrote about why she like Cypress. This week it was followed up by a more in-depth look at using HTTP requests in UI tests in Cypress. Whilst the article doesn’t explicitly call it out, this interestingly blurs the testing pyramid between UI and API tests - where the UI tests isn’t specifically focussed on authentication, this could save a considerable amount of time cumulatively across a suite of tests.
...
➦
Three Things I Learned This Week - 22nd Feb 2020
Feb 22, 2020
To see why I write these, see my first post in this series.
This week:
iOS Network Extensions look like an awesome way to achieve some things that are easier on Android, but still not often used (like starting a VPN, or creating a proxy server). Whether it’s hard or easy, rarer used technologies are harder to search for on Stack Overflow. Amazon have launched “multi-attach” for EBS volumes. That means you can attach a disk to sixteen computers at the same time.
...
➦
The Value of Automation
Feb 17, 2020
I’ve been asked many times to discuss test automation and its value to my team.
I’ve promoted a team’s efforts to plug the gaps in UI tests of critical paths, or defended a woeful lack of effort on mobile apps, or pushed back against UI tests to extend the middle slice of our pyramid. With a CTO this is often a conversation about how we focus or improve or prioritise existing tester efforts and what our test recruitment priorities should be.
...
➦
Three Things I Learned This Week - 15th Feb 2020
Feb 15, 2020
Back when I was a swaggery manager sort, I used to screen candidates with a phone call first. One of my prime criteria was for continuous learners - I wanted people who were learning, and aware that they were responsible for driving that learning. I used to screen that mindset with a horrible on-the-spot question: “Name three things you’ve learned in the last week”.
Given that I challenged other people with this question, it seemed only fair that I be able to answer it myself, and I do.
...
➦
Remote Working, Surevine and My Family
Jan 9, 2020
Remote working means something different for everyone who’s done it. For me, there are some very clear reasons as to why remote and flexible working are a must-have.
In 2014, I worked for a mobile app development house in a nearby city. Buses to and from. I left the house before my eldest got out of bed, and got home after he was in bed. I was weekend dad, and that wasn’t working for me.
...
➦
What is Android’s Project Mainline, and what will it do for business?
Sep 6, 2019
Here we are in early September, and Android 10 has just been released. It’s got lots of new features that might excite average users:
Dark Mode Theming Gesture navigation Inbuilt screen recording WiFi Easy Connect It also contains features for the more technical and security-conscious users
Support for 5G networks Peer-to-peer WiFi connections TLS 1.3 Granting location permissions to apps only whilst in the foreground MAC address randomisation There’s plenty more out there, and plenty of news outlets are publishing big lists you can find if you want to know more.
...
➦
