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AST Instructors? Tutorial at CAST in Toronto
2008-05-30 23:26:00
This post is largely copied from Cem Kaner's blog because I saw no need to re-write the same information :) You?ve read about the Association for Software Testing’s free software testing courses. Now find out how you can get involved in teaching these for AST, for your company, or independently. This workshop will use presentations, lectures, and hands-on exercises to address the challenges of teaching online: Becky Fiedler, Scott Barber and I will host the Live! AST Instructors? Orientation Course Jumpstart Tutorial On July 17, 2008, in conjunction with this year’s Conference of the AST (CAST).
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Scott Barber and AST now on Twitter
2008-05-19 16:06:00
Recently I succumbed to peer pressure and tried Twitter . Twitter is a "micro-blogging" site. It took me a while to figure out what that meant and what value it has, but after trying it, I get it now. It's a great way to share little bits of information worth sharing, but that doesn't (or often doesn't *yet*) justify a whole blog post. I find that I like it. It's a quick and easy way to keep folks up to date on what I'm doing and/or thinking about, like giving conference talks, or trying to flesh out some half-baked performance testing ideas.
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Registration for CAST 2008 now open!
2008-05-16 05:48:00
  The 3rd Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2008 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 14-16, 2008 Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing Keynote Presentations by Gerald M. Weinberg, Cem Kaner, Robert Sabourin, and Brian Fisher Tutorials by Gerald M. Weinberg, Scott Barber, Hung Nguyen, and Julian Harty The Association for Software Testing is pleased to announce its third annual conference (CAST 2008), to be held July 14-16. The meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, a city which features enormous diversity in culture, businesses, educational institutions, and the arts. Toronto is the perfect location for a conference on this year’s theme: "Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing". You can view the most recent brochure here, and you can see the conference program here.
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Identity crisis or delusions of grandeur?
2008-05-05 17:24:00
In this month's installment of "Peak Performance" I discuss the frequently erroneous and often grandeous titles software testers have on their business cards or in their e-mail SIGs. Identity crisis or delusions of grandeur? -- Scott Barber President & Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc. Vice President & Executive Director, Association for Software Testing www.perftestplus.com www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org "If you can see it in your mind...      you will find it in your life."
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Training for Performance Testers in Brighton UK, May 08.
2008-04-07 05:14:00
Scott Barber has teamed up with Rosie Sherry of DrivenQA to bring PTSS Training to Brighton & Hove, UK. Sign-up now for Performance Testing for Managers or Performance Testing for Software Systems; A Heuristic Approach.

Brazil and Uruguay and Conferences, Oh my!
2008-03-24 04:07:00
This morning I arrived in Brazil . For the next 2 weeks I?ll be doing some consulting, some training, and speaking at 3 conferences spanning Brazil and Uruguay . The first is Performance Summit 2008 hosted by Dell Brazil. The local organization team, including my friends and top-notch performance testers Carlos Panato and Walter Munstock, have already gone well out of their way to make me feel at home. Thanks guys!
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WOPR 10 & Pre-WOPR Event
2008-02-02 07:18:00
WOPR10: Call For Proposals (CFP) Theme: How can we teach performance testing? Every aspect of performance testing from problem awareness to systematic modeling, performance testing experiments, result analysis to problem reporting and getting the darn system actually working involves a rich an complex set of interrelated skills coupled with a blend of detailed technical knowledge and rich context sensitivity.  What are these skills?  How can we teach them? WOPR10 will explore the topic of teaching performance testing with seasoned professionals and expert performance testers as well as teachers and instructional designers. See the complete CFP on the WOPR Web Page Experimental Methods in Teaching Performance Testing (Pre-WOPR Event ) In the past year, the number of publications and training courses available related to testing the performance of software systems has increased dramatically.  Over the last 7 or so years, most training courses related to pe...

Conference of the Association for Software Testing (CAST) 2008
2007-12-22 09:19:00
  CALL FOR PAPERS   The 3rd Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2008 http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting. org/CAST2008 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 14-16, 2008 Beyond the Boundaries:  Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing Keynote Presentation by Gerald M. Weinberg The Association for Software Testing is pleased to announce its third annual conference (CAST 2008), to be held July 14-16.  The meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, a city which features enormous diversity in culture, businesses, educational institutions, and the arts.  Toronto is the perfect location for a conference on this year’s theme: "Beyond the Boundaries:  Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing".
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Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications book
2007-12-18 06:08:00
Some time back, I blogged about a book I?d been significantly contributing to being available as a free .pdf download. (see the entry here) Well, the book quietly appeared in ?dead tree format? (as Stuart Moncrieff put it in his blog post about the book) a couple of weeks ago and I?ve been getting light heartedly scolded by some of my friends and readers for not making a big announcement, so here?s my ?big announcement.? Perform ance Testing Guidance for Web Applications by: J.D. Meier, Scott Barber, Carlos Farre, Prashant Bansode, and Dennis Rea is now available on Amazon.
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Sapient Testing: Smart Stuff for Career Software Testers
2007-12-18 05:45:00
December Issue of the Association for Software Testing Newsletter Now Available I am proud to have my newest article published in the AST Newsletter, now titled Sapient Testing Magazine. You can download the December issue of Sapient Testing Magazine here.
More About: Smart , Stuff , Career

Performance Summit 2008, CFP
2007-11-22 18:50:00
PERFORMANCE SUMMIT 2008  March 20 - 21, 2008, Porto Alegre (Brazil)  Sponsored by: DELL- Brazil / PUCRS  SUBJECT OF THE CONFERENCE  Globalization pushes information technology to its limits. Also it makes companies more and more dependent on their IT resources, so speed and scalability became a critical factor for the companies to be successful. Perform ance Engineering (PE) came to help developing faster and more scalable applications by applying performance testing end engineering practices. Performance Engineering can be a complex area, demanding very skilled and experienced professionals. Also, this is a relatively new area in the business world, so there are plenty of room for development of techniques, practices and people. This summit has 2 main goals: to introduce performance engineering to the IT community, in order to increase the number of professionals in the discipline, and to share the best practices in the Performance engineering discipline, method...
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From The Web: "Noncertified IT pros earn more..."
2007-10-23 16:48:00
Stop the presses! Can it be true? The industry wants effective, qualified, multi-dimensional people who are capable of understanding business drivers & risk mitigation and applying that in a sapient way to their job as opposed to folks who paid someone to teach them how to pass a multiple-choice exam?!? Amazing!   Noncertified IT pros earn more than certified counterparts: survey
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From the Mailbox: Software Development: Art or Science?
2007-10-18 21:47:00
Here?s a question that I didn?t realize I had much to say about until I read my own response.   The Question: Software Development : Is it an art or a science? An age old question I know, but what do you think and why?  My Response:   I refer to new software development as a scientific art. I've seen some maintenance work, platform porting, etc. that has been almost entirely mechanical -- I'm not sure what that counts as, but I certainly didn't witness anything "artistic".
More About: Science , Software Development

Question from my inbox: How would you differentiate a good from a bad softw
2007-10-17 03:15:00
I was asked the question below (lightly edited for anonymity, clarity, and length) today and found it intriguing, so I thought I'd post it here.   The Question : This is an attempt to understand how (and why) users, practitioners, and professionals perceive the difference between a good software product and a bad software product, specifically released software products.
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7th Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, January 18-20, 2008
2007-10-15 19:28:00
I am honored to be co-hosting WTST this year along with Cem Kaner and Rebecca Fiedler. This year we're focusing on how to develop testing skills via online courses. For those of you who follow what I'm up to, you'll know that this topic is near and dear to my heart. I anticipate that it will be a great workshop. Read below to see if it's something that you might also be interested in:   ***************************************** *******   This year?s Workshop on Teaching Software Testing (WTST) will be January 18-20 in Melbourne, Florida.   WTST is concerned with the practical aspects of teaching university-caliber software testing courses to academic or commercial students.   This year, we are particularly interested in teaching testing online. How can we help students develop testing skills and foster higher-order thinking in online courses?

Scott Barber Interviewed by Empirix QA Zone
2007-10-15 06:17:00
About 6 months after Marina Gil Santamaria approached me about being interviewed for Empirix?s QA website, our schedules finally matched up well enough to get it done. You can read the interview at Empirix QAZone .   -- Scott Barber President & Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc. Vice President & Executive Director, Association for Software Testing www.perftestplus.com www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org   "If you can see it in your mind...      you will find it in your life."

Gentleman, Start Your Engines!!!
2007-09-17 17:54:00
My most recent column, inspired by a surprise trip to the Brickyard 400, has just been posted on TechTarget in which I discuss the distinction between "delivery" and "done" when it comes to testing the performance of software systems.   ********   Countless hours of development are now in the past. Testing indicates that everything is ready for the big day. The whole team is on hand, and the world is watching. It's the moment of truth; time to find out if all of the hard work is going to pay off. Anticipation builds until the command is given?
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Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
2007-08-30 22:01:00
We released the final version of our patterns & practices Performance Testing Guid ance for Web Applications . This guide provides an end-to-end approach for implementing performance testing. Whether you're new to performance testing or looking for ways to improve your current performance-testing approach, you will gain insights that you can tailor to your specific scenarios. The main purpose of the guide is to be a relatively stable backdrop to capture, consolidate and share a methodology for performance testing. Even though the topics addressed apply to other types of applications, we focused on explaining from a Web application perspective to maintain consistency and to be relevant to the majority of our anticipated readers.   Download the guide   Read the guide online   Stay tuned for a link to purchase the print version due to be available in early Oct.
More About: Web Application

Model Workloads for Performance Testing: FIBLOTS
2007-08-26 00:44:00
This is the third installment of a currently unknown number of posts about heuristics and mnemonics I find valuable when teaching and conducting performance testing.   Other posts about performance testing heuristics and mnemonics are:   Installment 1 - Perform ance Testing Core Principles: CCD IS EARI Installment 2 - Classify Performance Tests: IVECTRAS   For years, I have championed the use of production logs to create workload models for performance testing. During the same period, I've been researching and experimenting with methods to quickly create "good enough" workload models without empirical data that increase the value of the performance tests. I recently realized that these two ideas are actually complimentary, not exclusionary, and that with or without empirical usage data from production logs, I do the same thing, I:   FIBLOTS.
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Happy About Global Software Test Automation
2007-08-05 23:37:00
I just posted this review for Hung Nguyen's new book on Amazon. All you testers and test managers out there, slip this book under your boss's door when they aren't looking and watch how quickly the company starts embracing and respecting software testing! *** Happy About Global Software Test Automation : A Discussion of Software Testing for Executives is an absolute must read for any executive in a company that develops, customizes or implements software.

Classify Performance Tests: IVECTRAS
2007-08-03 16:17:00
I have struggled for over 7 years now with first figuring out and then trying to explain all the different "types" of performance tests. You know the ones:   Perform ance Test Load Test Stress Test Spike Test Endurance Test Reliability Test Component Test Configuration Test {insert your favorite word} Test
More About: Tests , Sify

Hourly Rant...
2007-07-31 05:50:00
I just finished answering a question posted on LinkedIn by Esther Schindler in researching a article she is working on for CIO.com She asks (summarized): "There's just one question to answer: If you could get the (client) boss(es) to understand JUST ONE THING about computer consulting and contracting, what would it be? Or, to put the same question another way: If you were given a single wish of something to change (about a current or past client) what would it be?"
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Last Call for CAST '07
2007-07-04 06:34:00
CAST '07 - the Conference of the Association for Software Testing, "Testing Techniques, Innovations and Applications" is just 6 days away! Have you registered yet for what is my favorite conference of the year? If not, you still have a chance!   Just a few hours ago, we renegotiated our contract with the facility to accommodate more people because we'd crossed our target number of registrants (again) and we didn't want to turn anyone away. What that means is that at this moment, there are about 12 seats open to a conference that was sold out when I sat down to lunch today.
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Software Testing Lessons from my children (Thoughts on Father's Day)
2007-06-18 20:25:00
My most recent column has just been posted on TechTarget in which I discuss some of the lessons I‘ve learned from my children about software testing.   ********   I had planned an entirely different topic for this month, but I‘m sitting down to write this on Father‘s Day while my sons (Nicholas, age 8, and Taylor, age 4) are napping, and realizing that I‘ve never written about what I have learned about testing from my boys.
More About: Software , Children , Testing , Thoughts , Lessons

CFP - Montreal workshop on Internationalized Software Testing
2007-06-02 17:34:00
Montreal workshop on Internationalized Software Testing (MOIST) MOIST is a new peer workshop in the LAWST style sanctioned by the Association for Software Testing (AST) that is bound to be yet another ground-breaking event in community building and innovation. If you have experience with internationalization testing, this is a place that you will want to be in Oct.
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Performance Testing Guide Beta 1 is Available
2007-05-25 19:13:00
Some of you have been wondering what I've been working on recently... well, here's the answer. I've been working with a crack MS team to create tool, process, vendor, religion, diet and gender agnostic guidance around the most common activities and challenges related to performance testing web applications in commercially driven environments. We've finally achieved a version that we believe is "good/done enough" to let all you testers out there shred it and provide your feedback. Beta 1 means what you think it does. There are known issues, unknown issues, and all that other stuff. That said, the other members of the team and I all, personally and collectively, stand behind the concepts in the guide (though in some places we are still trying to figure out the best way to express those concepts). The bottom line is this. If you do, might do, have ever done, or might be interested in Performance Testing , we'd love to have your thoughts/feedback. We're working on short rev...
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Developing an approach to performance testing -- CCD IS EARI
2007-05-21 16:44:00
I mentioned a while back the Peak Performance column was moving to SearchSoftwareQuality.com. It's been several months now and I'm quite happy with them, not only as a publisher, but as an information broker. If you haven't already, I recommend taking a look around. Whether you have time to poke around the site or not, the link below is to my most recent column. Develop ing an approach to performance testing -- CCD IS EARI
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CAST 2007 - "Testing Techniques, Innovations and Applications"
2007-04-24 07:07:00
I attend a lot of conferences. I enjoy different conferences for different reasons. That said, there is only one conference that I automatically budget my own money and my own time to attend every time.... CAST - the annual Conference of the Association for Software Testing If you haven't already registered I recommend you do it soon - seats are going fast, and there are only a limited number available. If you really care about good testing, teaching testing, advancing testing, conferring with thought leaders, sharing ideas and getting your questions answered, CAST is the place to be. Every talk includes *more* time for questions and answers than for the presentation, dramatically increasing your ability to learn the details you need to apply or internalize new ideas.
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WOPR Public Meeting: April 12, 2007, Boston
2007-04-12 08:47:00
1st Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR) Public Meeting April 12, 2007 6:00pm ? 9:00pm MITRE CENTER 2C130 Paradigm Shifts in Performance Testing: Evolution or Revolution? New Tools = Changing Paradigm. With all the high powered commercial tools available, Open Source tools still have a role. Its not performance or functional testing, but combined performance and functional testing. Agile Performance Testing is different. Is performance testing gaining importance and relevance in IT? Is there increased collaboration with Operations? Is it resulting in better tuning & capacity planning?
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Five Questions with Jon Bach, an interview by Michael Hunter (The Braidy Te
2007-03-30 23:39:00
I met Jon about 3 years ago. It was a funny story, actually. I was at STAREast talking with a bunch of folks at the bar after the last presentation of the day. Some guy came over and introduced himself to the person sitting next to me. I heard his name and I stopped, mid-word, stood up excitedly, started shaking his hand and talking a mile-a- minute... (Scott) "OhMyGod! Jon Bach ! I'mSoExcitedToMeetYou! IReadYourBookAnd... I'm sorry, my name is Scott Barber, I've done some work with your brother..."
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