TA Professional Perspectives

The demise of the cubicle? By Tatiana Andronache, I.S.P. Published in ComputerWorld Canada, 2006 I had to come to believe - and was prepared to put in writing - that the cubicle will go down in the history of work with the same reputation as shackles did. But higher authorities on the matter have decided that the cubicle will be glamorous again before it goes down in history. Whether it is heading in that direction any time soon is in fact debatable. Herman Miller’s Action Office brand of the 60’s is alive and well. It is quite surprising that in the age of mobility the cubicle would be enjoying a comeback. After all, many office workers and notably those in IT are set free to roam and work from client sites, home offices, the road, or a wireless café. Yet a company like IBM embarked a few years ago on a pilot project meant to bring us the “cubicle of the future”: the inhabitant was put in control of his physical and virtual environment through a touch screen monitor, and w...

... has little to do with methodologies, tools and projects. Obviously, testing software is a technical endeavour, which is ever more critical and complicated in this other world we are building with every screen, application and system. https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2014/08/25/22/54/pen-427516__340.png But testing software is also a tremendous opportunity to test oneself as a human and as a professional. It teaches life skills! The defects in you ... are you going to find them? be bothered to report them to yourself? be able to realistically assess their severity and ramifications? Will you know how to manage them? how to fix them? a workaround for now or the maybe the painful, costly or radical solution? The list of life teachings from testing software gets longer than I initially thought! Patience Let me not rush to conclusions; it may not be what I first think it is. Some defects are deep or devious. I will repeat the test and document the findings for the benefit of the...

I couldn't believe my years this morning (Feb 03 2020): this CBC journalist interviwing a specialist about the problems of IT systems delivering pensions to Canadians and saying that "these systems are so old, [that] they are mission-critical".!!!???  Intonation is key here! These systems were mission critical since their day one. They have not become mission-critical because they are old! And while this ineptitude should be addressed with CBC (if I find the time to dig up the name of the program), the issue of aging IT systems is definitely worth of an in depth look in a future article. Very old applications are still the backbone of IT systems in many very large institutions. Some worth reading articles on the topic: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/complex-impact-fintech-legacy-systems-banking-susan-visser/  (2017) https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/02/28/15/38/black-18320__340.jpg

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/10/24/06/51/date-62740__340.jpg Once upon a time the IT world set up a colossal effort to address the existential threat put by miscalculated dates when the century would turn and computers all over the world won't know how to plug in the missing century digits. The challenge was successfully met and the story ended then and there. It was called Y2K. Young and youngish IT professionals did not experience it so this story is now forgotten. The proof is in the proliferation of incomplete and confusing dates such as 09/03/06. It looks like no lesson was learned when it comes to date standards and usability issues. But at least the magnitude of the Y2K managerial effort, which made and unmade careers, would deserve a commendation twenty years later. I don't think it happened in the media - social or otherwise. Hence this article:  https://www.batimes.com/articles/mingled-dates-still-pervasive-the-forgotten-legacy-of-y2k.html

Being recently given the gift of time [euphemistically speaking...] and the opportunity [ditto] to revisit my career so far, I go back [more years than it's prudent to reveal] to a professional experience that experts in resume building and outplacement say is "unmentionable". But this very fall marks an anniversary of sorts and, oblivious to their sound advice, I'll go there, because while technologies come and go, human "typologies" are here to stay. So these many years later, I resurrect this older article  of mine about good people managers [to you, Jeff!] and bad ones [names forsaken]. Oct. 2019 https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/07/18/14/56/open-163973__340.jpg

There are many methodologies and tools to support testing activities of all calibers and kinds in information technology. But I dare say, here is an angle not seen yet: testing for Green. What would that be? https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/02/10/16/16/laptop-2055522__340.jpg I am a firm believer that testing and design should go hand in hand. This belief comes from my many years of practice as an IT application analyst, designer, coder, tester and implementer. It does not come from the current upsurge in concerns with the environment but the time seems ripe for this public disclosure of what have been private professional concerns. Also worth noting that Green is not a popular topic when it comes to testing - yet! How I see it, Green Testing of software applications has two fundamental dimensions: assessing how green the tested application is; and,  how green the testing process itself is.  The first dimension is - or rather should be! - awareness of issues such:...