Dr Shankar Ramamoorthy

Topic: TESTING IS NOT DEAD : LONG LIVE TESTING !! Tester Zinda Hai - REBEL STAR STRIKES BACK

Abstract: Software testing is not dead, but software test only jobs may disappear slowly. Testers should up skill themselves to test software in a better way using different tools and technologies available. Software testing is one of the most important thing because it is the backbone of IT sectors. Although Rome wasn’t built in a day, it took six days to accidentally burn down in 64AD. It was rebuilt to be a bit more fireproof. And when the burning of the Iroquois Theater in Chicago killed 602 people in 1903, the fire code for theaters improved in 1904. The Triangle Waistcoat Factory fire in New York City (146 dead) led to the founding of the New York City Bureau of Fire Protection, and the National Fire Protection Association now maintains several hundred separate codes– many of them inspired directly by specific tragic fires. People learn from disasters.

This is also why we have testers. Software disasters happened and people learned. Those specific people became more careful, dedicated more energy to quality assurance (including testing), and there were fewer disasters. But, unlike fire codes, devotion to QA is generally not a matter of law. If an organization hasn’t had a disaster in a while, their practices get steadily riskier (partly because younger and more innocent people replace the experienced ones). This is a normal Darwinian cycle.

So it’s not entirely surprising that at the STAR West conference, in 2011, James Whittaker (then at Google) announced that testing is “dead.” What? Testing is dead?! He seemed to be saying that testers are no longer needed in a world with automated checks and automatic updates. But Whittaker was not a professional tester. So, imagine a cabinet factory industrialist, never himself having built a cabinet, announcing the death of skilled carpentry. That’s what it sounded like to author.. As if the Fates overheard him and been offended , a few weeks later a bunch of Google Bugs made news.

Hence the author in the keynote address will talk on Seven Deadly sins which we should not commit and will explain through his framework called TestViva and his TLA( Test Life Areas)how one can breathe new life into Testing and the Rebel Star can emerge as Phoenix if soothsayers have written it off.

Zinda Hai when he does not commit 7 Deadly Sins
1. Testing may die if you start using the word “testing” to mean checking.
2. Testing may die if the value of products becomes irrelevant.
3. Testing may die if the quality of testing work is chronically poor.
4. Testing may die if all the users in the world were early adopter technocrats.
5. Testing may die by suffocation.
6. Testing may die if technology stops changing.
7. Testing may die by starvation.

Test Viva @copyright ( Viva means Life) Framework will be discussed in detail for all the seven sins in the form of guidelines matrix and each of the Test Life Areas ( TLA) will be labeled to explain how one can imbue fresh life and energy through TestViva and keep Testing Alive and Kicking!!