I won’t go into detail about what was said and done because the website has a good Wiki where you can read-up on what went down. I hope all the scribes put up what they have. There should also be some audio tracks up there soon. This post is mainly about me posting some rough & dirty pics. AND of course to rave about how AMAZINGLY GREAT this unconference was. Lots to take home and brilliant people in attendance!

Thanks again to PJ and Jeff for helping us do our own conference! Great stuff!

Starting us all off To CITCON (speak KITKON!!!! VERY IMPORTANT!)

So…..what’s on the menu

Lively discussion

Now this is what I call OFF TOPIC

CI tools and the pro’s and con’s

Oh, you probably won’t know what Weekend Testing (WT, http://weekendtesting.com) is! So let me explain… This WT stuff was “invented” in India and is spreading the globe. The aim is that Testers learn from other testers while using their skills. So the low down is, at a certain time on the weekend and undefined number of testers meet on a Skype chat and a facilitator then poses a task/mission. The testers go and do their stuff for an hour and then come back and discuss what they did and why.

The success has been quite phenomenal so far. There are three chapters in India and one in Europe. Because the time zone differences are quite extreme for us here at the other side of the globe there was a need to start our own chapter. So….

18th April is the first session
6:30PM New Zealand time and
4:30PM AUS time (east coast).

For more details have a look here: http://marlenacompton.com/?p=692

I started using Ubuntu in earnest with 8.04 and 10.04 will mark 2 years of using Ubuntu at my work desktop. I am a Mac fanboy but in the office I have the choice Windows 7….well that is about the only choice. I decided to go rouge and run Ubuntu way back when. It works quite well for me in conjunction with CrossoverOffice. There are definitely nigglies and I wouldn’t suggest running it at work if you’re not IT savvy. Running it as home OS is a lot simpler because you are not dependent on Microsoft back-end services.

Anyway 10.04 is about to drop on us and it is a LTS release (Long Term Support) which is nice. It has lots of new cool features and the design has improved a little too. So have fun using it!

I have checked out the alpha and beta releases and they look spectacular. Definite improvements over 9.04. I’m also very interested in the advancement of the server side with cloud computing being the big new thing.

Matt Mansell’s (DIA) talk about Growing Great Test Analysts contained one comment that really struck a chord (not that the rest of the talk wasn’t excellent). He said (my own interpretation) that calling us testers is really putting down our capabilities and our profession. Instead we should make a point of calling ourselves Test Analysts. We ARE analysts and good testing is learned the hard and painful way. We are not monkeys or Business Analysts in sheep’s clothing.  I am as guilty as are most. I will in future make a real effort in using the proper term of  Test Analyst. It is a small but vital step in the right direction.

Stanz 2009 fltr: Julian Harty, Karen Johnson, Lee Copeland, James Bach

And the above really highlights what Stanz is all about. We go there to get reminded that we are in a testing profession. The speakers entice us to learn more, to read more and to get off our complacent derrierès. The 2009 Stanz definitely had the right set of speakers for this. I again enjoyed the quasi familiarity of the event. I doubt there are many places in the world where the attendees and speakers can get so up-close and personal to exchange ideas.

The effects of the recession were visible but that was to be expected. Even so I’d say the attendance was good and it was nice to see all those familiar faces again and meet some new ones.

Who knows, 2010 might be the year I switch sides from listening to talking. We’ll see…..

Director J.J. Abrams has certainly created his masterpiece. Maybe not technically as a film but for him to take the Star Trek universe and dare to go near the topic and then make such a stunner is definitely a great achievement. The film has a near perfect cast (the only slight let-down is Uhura), a good story and great special effects. Where the special effects never seem to take center stage but enhance the story. I loved the film and sincerely hope Abrams immerses himself in the Star Trek universe and lets us have at least another three masterpieces like this one. The stage is definitely set for more great stuff.

And because Abrams has his fingers deeply in the land of TV series (Lost, Alias) we might stand to hope….. oh that would that not be a dream come true…

With this film I will do something I haven’t done for over 15 years. I am going to watch it again in the cinema. I am so elated to see Star Trek alive and kicking (butt; if I might add!). I was getting somehow jealous of the Star Wars fans (although it depends which fan you ask .

Both Spocks are great and Kirk is the son of a b*tch he’s supposed to be (although I still don’t dislike him quite as much as the Shatner-Kirk which I loved to hate). Karl Urban as Bones and Simon Pegg as Scotty are excellent choices that match the originals easily. Especially Karl is a chip off the old block.

So if you’re a Trekker or Trekkie “May you watch long and be happy”. I’m not going to say “go watch this film” because I know you will but drop me a comment here what you thought.

As most of you probably know or can guess, Rex Black’s law is quite the opposite of what I believe testing should be like. So I was quite surprised to see him talk about (A)agile testing. I couln’t see how those worlds really fit together. And I wasn’t disappointed.

[(A)gile as defined in the talk was the commonly misused cloud of anything that is not really Waterfall/V-Model. I will use this definition here and not distinguish between the project management side and the engineering practices as I usually do.]

One of the first things that he said is that he sort of doesn’t believe in (A)agile (or was that (A)agile testing?). Then he went on in his usual self to ponder about Risk Based Testing and how (A)agile is failing it’s targets because testing is being squashed at the end… He even went so far as to propose his own take on sprints (adding a second sprint after each sprint for more testing). He can do that because (A)agile is about freedom but I’m not convinced that’s what he understood why he can do that.

I think Rex misunderstands what (A)aile is all about. In my opinion it’s all about bottom up. Or to use another overused phrase “power to the people“. I asked him about that and he said that that was a dreamers perspective and would never be really implemented. I think that’s what this is really about though. As long as we have managers/sales second guessing their subject matter experts (SMEs) and coming up (dreaming up) with estimates and time-frames overruns and bad projects will continue to happen. Why not let the people in the know do what they do best?

If you are not willing to go down the path of giving power to the people who actually know what they are doing you’re still in Waterfall/V-Model world. Only if you make the mental leap to trust the people you have employed to do their job can you contemplate going (A)agile. (A)agile and all of its different methodologies have (at least) one thing in common. They rely on adhering to the proposed rules of the methodology for them to work. The nice thing is that they are pretty simple and so can be remembered easily. The problem is that they usually get “waterfallified/v-modelized”. My conviction is, that as soon as you do that, you have just migrated all the downfalls of the past to what you want to do in the future.

Rex buys fully into the “waterfallified/v-modelized” agile. That’s like saying you quit before you start. So I classify Rex’s talk as an anti-agile presentation. He would of-course vehemently oppose what I just said and went so far as to indicate that the testing job in an agile world will not change that much and he’ll earn money no matter what happens.

Wat was interesting about Rex’s talk was that there are some new things I hadn’t seen him use before. One that amazed me was the use of Test Oracles. That is something I heard from James Bach for the first time (although I’m not saying one was before the other because I plain just don’t know). Rex was using the exact same definition in his presentation and talk. For those that don’t know James and Rex are probably the most extreme positions we have in testing at the moment (each one on the opposite side). So what’s happening? Will we see a slow amalgamation of all testing lore out there? That would be like a dream come true. Or is this just a another ploy for ISTQB to make it even more encompassing (i.e. we cover that keyword too-type of encompassing)?

Anyway, the talk was good and it definitely opend my eyes a little more but I guess not quite like Rex might have wanted. I learned that the people like Rex are probably the biggest danger to (A)agile and all (A)agile methods. They say yes to agile but do not embrace the pure spirit of the movement (and reading a manifesto doesn’t really do it). Especially in people with a standing such as Rex saying it’s OK to deviate or water(fall) down the (A)agile teachings is really dangerous. They are giving the managers and non-believers out there the ammunition they need to scuttle (A)agile in the workplace.

If (A)agile does not become commonplace in the next 5-10 years it will be a huge loss to the industry. The loss of efficiency has the potential of slowing down or hampering the whole of human development. So I’d be happier if people like Rex who don’t believe that agile can work would say so and not try and fly some quirky path that leaves them somewhere in the middle just to keep in the game. I’m sure he can find enough to do in the “old” world to keep him happy until he retires. We need this revolution in the minds of leaders and managers for IT to survive as a sane engineering practice.

Thank you to SoftEd for the invite and the good breakfast.

1. Will the financial crisis be over in 2009?
2. How will Obama fare in is first year?
3. Will NZ change due to the National government?
4. Will Apple release a Netbook/Tablet computer?
5. Will Windows 7 continue the XP legacy?
6. Will Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) blow everything away?
7. Will Ubuntu 9.04 bring a renewal of Linux desktop?
8. Will the Ocean levels rise?
9. Will we see the breakthrough for electric cars?
10. Will Israel ignite the middle east again?

So looking forward to it…:-D

I’m sure the DVD will be a success. I think it just hits the sweet spot with people starting to think about immigrating to NZ. It’s not as pricey as an immigration consultant and not as tedious as hunting for the answers yourselves. A good side effect is that the DVD is English only. People should take that as a guide to judge if their English is good enough. If they have big problems following the DVD they should probably invest more time in their English studies.

The DVD has also had amazing buy-in from Immigration New Zealand and the IRD. That makes the DVD as official as you can get.

All in all I’m sure the DVD will make life lots easier for loads of immigrants. Stands to hope we won’t get overrun in the near future

Oh and… a BIG congrats to Melanie & Brian for making their dream come true!!

The fist since she’s visited NZ 10 years ago. I found the strength and vitality of this lady just amazing. Like (e.g.) the Dalai Lama she has a strong conviction about what she talks and captivates her listeners in wonderful stories of a wild Africa.

What was new to me was the direct connection she makes between animals and humans. She points out the many ways in which animals are necessary for us humans to survive.

I’ve included a picture of Jane with our local 34-year-old Tuatara. It was the first time I’ve seen a Tuatara up close and must admit this is a VERY unique reptile. I know nothing that comes even close. It really looks like a small dinosaur. The Tuatara really gave Jane a run for her money. Two celebrities at once is a tall order I am definitely a new Tuatara fan!

Stanz is especially useful for those getting into testing and those who want to mingle in the scene. For a small market it is amazing that Wellington has such a large and successful test conference. My wish would be more in depth tracks for the “old” pro’s in the field. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next year.