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Paul Watson wrote:
Great, that should hold true for everyone in any industry. Respect is very important in an efficient environment.
It wasn't me who said "manager" first, I am just trying to stay on topic. 
Paul Watson wrote:
What I mean by prima donas are jerks who think they are better than everyone else in the office.
That pretty much desribes 90% of the workforce in any industry
Paul Watson wrote:
They say everyone else sucks and that they are the only real programmer in the team.
I used to think that the others are "still learning".
Paul Watson wrote:
You have to basically hand everything to them on a silver platter to get anything done. Most of the time they are more trouble than they are worth and you get rid of them.
That type of people do happen. Many of them will become managers later on (due to the above awerage ass-licking skills) and are the real pain to deal with.
Paul Watson wrote:
While not a feature of a prima dona exclusively I do get annoyed with this: Programmers who do not care about anything but the code they write.
That is more of a social attitude, and typically is independent on the coding and it's rather a personality issue. Of course you can't just focus on the code, it's not the way society works. Unless of course you are working on your own.
Paul Watson wrote:
I like to work with people who care. Who are willing to do some dirty work and pitch in when the tough stuff comes along. When push comes to shove those are the guys I keep and the rest can go find somewhere else to complain.
I like to work with professionals. They usually "care" (or they would not be able to be proffesionals).
You do dirty work if you have to, but it's way better to avoid the need to do dirty work in the first place!
I C++, therefore I am...
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Paul Watson wrote:
memory leek
If I eat more of those will it improve my memory?
Bruce Duncan, CP#9088, CPUA 0xA1EE, Sonork 100.10030
'ugly naked women are good, when i'm not around, in front of someone else' - Shog9
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Bruce Duncan wrote:
If I eat more of those will it improve my memory?
How embarrasing. Funnily enough I have been eating quite a lot of leeks lately. Spinach, leeks, bacon bits and white sauce is just great 
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Black Cat wrote:
The problem with QA is, they don't know how the app works and therefore every "bug" is equally important to them.
Actually all bugs are equally important. It's only the effort required to fix them that makes a difference and forces to prioritise them.
Black Cat wrote:
If a QA finds 2 typos on a web page, he will write formal reports and thinks that he has earned his paycheck for the day.
If it is a web page, I would say that typos are extremely important and probably one of the main focus of QA.
Black Cat wrote:
The problem with a developer is, he thinks that all users including QA should know how the app is implemented (give me a real bug to fix, don't bother me with trivial things).
I am a developer and I think that users shuld only know how to use the application, while QA should have one group that is familiar with the application usage and one group that knows nothing about it (so called monkey-test approach, where commands are issued at random to push the app to the limit and detect how it's dealing with non-standard usage patterns).
All bugs are real, but you should not let the trivial ones out to the testing team to begin with...
I C++, therefore I am...
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George wrote:
If it is a web page, I would say that typos are extremely important and probably one of the main focus of QA
Odd you say that. Websites are filled with typos due to their content rich nature.
If I see a typo in a web page I gloss over it, but if I see a typo in a Windows app then I remember it and feel a bit more wary about the app I am using.
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Paul Watson wrote:
Odd you say that. Websites are filled with typos due to their content rich nature.
OK, so what else would you test on a webpage? Links(which could be as well in the typo's category since it's probably the most common reason for links to be broken)?
I C++, therefore I am...
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George wrote:
OK, so what else would you test on a webpage? Links
People do not seem to understand that a website is an application just like any other. Even one webpage can be complex.
So with that comes many areas that require testing. Content, links, validation, scalability, security etc. etc. etc. Everything and more that one would test for in a Windows app. Plus there are extra things to test for, like if half way through a set of five forms what happens when the user uses the back button to change something? Does the web-app cover that? Or will it fall over.
Just ask Chris what developing, testing (stabilising), deploying and maintaining a web site is like. It is not for monkeys 
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Paul Watson wrote:
People do not seem to understand that a website is an application just like any other.
Well, maybe it's because it actually isn't?
I mean, it doesn't look like one, it doesn't act like one, and it's slow. Nothing like a serious application, more like an application wannabe - so what do you expect?
Paul Watson wrote:
Just ask Chris what developing, testing (stabilising), deploying and maintaining a web site is like. It is not for monkeys
And on the other hand, it's far from the proper application development process as well.
I C++, therefore I am...
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George wrote:
Paul Watson wrote:
People do not seem to understand that a website is an application just like any other.
Well, maybe it's because it actually isn't?
Got news for you George, web based applications are big business, creating millions of dollars of income for developers and and consuming millions more in hardware and servicing costs.
George wrote:
And on the other hand, it's far from the proper application development process as well.
Because of the large amounts of money invested into these projects, process is very much adhered to. Testing is done by very qualified people representing the business and their interests. These people run test scripts rated against the original requirments ( and subsequent change requests) and produce defect reports. The impact of these defects are assesed by the business sponsers and application architects and given a priority for repair. The business, after basic functionality, tends to favour fixing presentation defects.
I pride myself on trying to write error free code, but have yet to find someone who can (including myself). I respect those who can do the repetitive and often mundain task of testing my code ( after I have released what I believe to be error free and unit tested) and welcome the oppertunity to fix defects I know are of my doing. As an architect and team leader I encourage people to work with the testers as they are, as are developers, a nessesary part of the process.
J
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Light up. I like the post that said
"Programming is great. First they pay you to introduce bugs into software. Then they pay you to remove them again."
Seriouly, no one wants to create bugs. Unfortunately, even with the best efforts, bugs do pop up in the worst moment. In the real world, everything has certain priority, so are the bugs.
I just don't see how you can treat all bugs equally.
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Black Cat wrote:
The problem with QA is, they don't know how the app works and therefore every "bug" is equally important to them. If a QA finds 2 typos on a web page, he will write formal reports and thinks that he has earned his paycheck for the day.
The problem with a developer is, he thinks that all users including QA should know how the app is implemented (give me a real bug to fix, don't bother me with trivial things).
And interestingly, the "truth" is somewhere between. In our company, (in theory) the testers log problems, but a separate person (or group) determines how severe it is. For instance, if the code crashes during normal operation, that's considered severe. If a particular piece of text is bold when it should be italics, then that is considered less severe.
The decision to fix something, then, is based on: how much time do we have, how severe is it, and how much code will it take?
However, we do spend a lot of time fixing seemlingly cosmetic stuff (e.g., text). This is especially important when our apps get translated... users hate when a button that was the right size in English turns out to be too small in Spanish, and text is cut off.
I actually don't mind fixing "trivial" things, because they are usually easy to fix. It's the nasty crashes that point to design flaws that are the problem.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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Testing is part of the development process. This might seem obvious to some, but suprisingly many people do not understand what it means. This is probably due to the idea that "QA will do testing". That idea has the effect of designating testing to QA and programming to Development, thus separating the two. Once separated the satement "Testing is part of the development process" does not hold true anymore and this can have disasterous effects.
I fully agree that QA does the testing, what I disagree with is the way in which development and testing become segragated from each other as an effect. The effect is natural since Testers are employed to do testing and Programmers are employed to do programming, thus creating two 'groups' of people.
What could be done about this? One idea is to only employ programmers and work with a rotation system. For example, a programmer would become a tester for one week every month. Another idea is for the product manager to be a qualified software engineer who is also head of QA.
Whatever method is used the aim should be to keep testing and development process intact.
Regards,
James Pullicino
Drinking In The Sun
Forgot Password?
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I agree with most of that. In our job descriptions, we programmers are not to rely solely on QA to test our products, we have to test them ourselves. QA is good for testing cases we probably didn't think of, for doing regression tests, tests on different operating systems, etc.
Programmers are good at general testing (does the app do what it's supposed to without crashing), unit testing (which requires knowledge of the code), and such.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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[James Pullicino] wrote:
Testing is part of the development process.
Sure. I agree to testing the code I wrote to ensure it does what was intended by the customer (as defined in the requirement paper). Testing the functionality of the coded unit before giving it to the QA staff is therefore essential.
The QA staff in our house will do the overall testing (testing really all features after a qualified plan), finding bugs and wrong behaviour or side effects which are not obvious to the developers.
Regards,
Erik.
The opinion expressed here is solely mine.
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That gives me time to create new and more interesting bugs while s/he finds the last lot.
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Hey Phil do you happen to work in my company ?;)
For example We code till 4.30 pm when the courier is coming to pick up the CD at 4.45pm, sometimes the courier has to stand around waiting for us to finish burning the CD!!! And then the next morning someone will ring to say the bit of code you finished at 4.37pm doesn't work !
Have a look at my website: http://www.chrisormerod.cjb.net
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Phil J Pearson wrote:
That gives me time to create new and more interesting bugs while s/he finds the last lot.
I suppose that that is one way of oing about it.
Regards,
Brian Dela 
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Ouch! 
The following statement about your geekness is true. The previous statement about your geekness is false.
GCS/IT/P d- s: a- C++++$ UL+>++++ P+ L++$ E- W+++$ N !o K+ w++$ O---- M--
PS- PE Y+ PGP--- t !5 X- tv b+++ DI++ D+ G++ e++ h--- r+++
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Unfortunately, that is the philosophy of the big boss. Developers should test their code, but they shouldn't be responsible for Quality Assurance. You can't effectively do both jobs at once. If you try, some part of it will suffer: the coding or the testing.
Jon Sagara
Damnit Jim!
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Let's see now, I missed it in analysis, I missed it in design, I missed it in coding, I missed it in debugging, I missed it in unit testing, but wait! I'll catch it when I put on my QA wannabe cap, right?!
Hey, makes about as much sense as anything else in this business...
Chistopher Duncan
Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)
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Jon Sagara wrote:
You can't effectively do both jobs at once.
I agree, it's like proof-reading a document that you wrote.
Many errors are natural to the developer.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining.
Said by Roger Wright about me.
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There must be outside people that test your programs, because they come with a fresh mind. Btw they'll not only show the bugs, they'll also actively suggest better UI and stuff.
MS quote (http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) : As of September 30, 2002, the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 DDK, the Microsoft Windows 98 DDK, and the Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 DDK will no longer be available for purchase or download on this site.
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I worked for Robot Research a few years ago, eventually bought by Sensormatic (and now something else). They were the only company I ever worked for that had a functional QA department, with people who were actually intelligent. I'm really glad I had this positive experience, because everywhere eles I've been, the QA has been a joke.
I learned how to code so that every user action is logged, so I don't have to rely on the QA department saying "I did X" when in reality, they did "Y". I've had people test functionality they were specifically told NOT TO TEST because it was still under development. I've given QA a detailed acceptance test procedure which was totally ignored. The ATP is useful because, of course, there's no documentation when QA wants to start testing, so they don't have the slightest idea what to do with the product, hence they need some basic walkthrough document.
And then, there's getting management to pay for a real QA department. That's another battle. Oh, and lets not forget buying several different machines with different OS's to test the product.
I guess this is why Florida spent >$30 MILLION and still can't get their election right. Jeez. I worked for an election company, and it just isn't that difficult (I think I could have done a lot better with just $1M!!!). Of course, election people are some of the stupidest people in the whole world.
Oh boy, did this survey get me going.
Marc
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QA = joke:
Q: Who is the QA department for our company?
A: Our customers, of course.
Gary R. Wheeler
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