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Hi! It's Dave - any messages?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Sorry I'm late!
Thanks for standing in for me!
So... any messages for me?
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For those that are confused, it's an annoying drinking game (as in, if you aren't drunk you wouldn't do it).
You pick some phone number and all night people call it asking for Dave. This winds up the poor sod on the other end horribly by about the twentieth call.
Then, late at night comes the final call "Hi! It's Dave - any messages for me?"
Followed by swearing, screaming, or general apoplexy.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I was thinking of the movie, "Up In Smoke." Chong calls up a house and says, "it's me, Dave." Cheech replies, "Dave's not here man," and it continues on from there.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I wonder how many here are old enough for that reference?
:raises hand:
Yep, I'm one of them. 
:edit:
Based on the results of this weeks survey, most of us would probably get that reference. 
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Some people say Latin is a dead language. But I know it's still Roman around.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Yeah but before you invest the time in learning it, be aware that you won't be able to use it to converse with a lot of people.
So, caveat emptor.
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I went to the dentist a while back, and he filled my caveats.
Software Zen: delete this;
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So..... I've got an Android app going live on Google Play soon. I've been testing this app six ways to Sunday, trying to find any and all bugs before release. I have hammered this app, beat it up in every way possible....test, bug fixes, test bug fixes ... for weeks!
Saturday night, my 5 year old daughter and I went to have pizza, mommy was working. I was showing the app to her and telling her how proud I am of the app, how it took a lot of work, how I've bug tested it exhaustively for weeks and that I think it's finally bug free and ready for release.
My daughter asks "daddy can I play with it?" I said sure and explained how to use it. She has no idea what the app does, it's just numbers and bright colors in her eyes. She loved it!
As I chomped on my pizza and watched her, in the back of my mind, a thought ...... hmmm ... a 5 year old randomly pushing buttons could be a good QA test. Quickly that thought faded, there was more pizza to eat! So, I chomped some more pizza and listened to her giggle.
A couple of minutes later, I look down and she's got fingers on both entry buttons......
You ever get that "cosmic swirl" feeling? Like time and space is swirling in a vortex around you at a significant moment in time? That sensation, is usually coupled with the feeling, like you are in a dream, falling from the sky......
Right then, the planets changed their orbits, space and time started to swirl around us. I feel like I'm in a dream falling out of the sky..... She looks up at me and says....
"Daddy.....what happens if I press BOTH buttons at the same time?"
I could leave the story at that. You programmers know what happened and have probably snorted coffee out your nose, laughing.
But for the rest of the story.....yep, my 5 year old daughter, while eating pizza, found her first bug. A bug that daddy, despite herculean effort, missed after weeks and weeks of testing!
The future is bright for this one!
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"The 5yo test", or 'If you can make the program stop, and show daddy how you did it, you'll have an ice cream cone' has been well known among my co-workers for at least twenty years - but mostly as a joke. It is great to see that someone is actually using the method in real life!
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Ooohh...she loves ice cream. Will have to use that! 
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yup, my coworkers have only joked about it so far. Would be doubly interesting since at least one has kids at the same age as the software we're doing is trying to teach.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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Hi, when i was designing security equipment in the 80-90s (assembler, naturally). I would give a working prototype to a salesman to take home for his kids to play with.
It quite often came back with a verbal bug report. (he would ask them how they made it do THAT and reproduce it himself)
If his kids could not get it to I knew I was right for initial production
If you cannot find any bugs, give it to a kid. They will find one.
Fun.
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I've always half jokingly said that the best test is to just smash the keyboard randomly and see what breaks (other than the keyboard). 
Nothing exposes bugs better than an end user. That one in a million combination of keystrokes and data entry sequence that you would swear is impossible will occur within minutes of releasing the app.
Kelly Herald
Software Developer
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Kids and Cats right? LOL Best QA testers!
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I have found bugs when the cat jumped on the keyboard before.
The funny thing is that it is never funny at the time when a joke becomes reality.
Money makes the world go round ... but documentation moves the money.
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Kelly Herald wrote: the best test is to just smash the keyboard randomly
therein lies the following story:
Once upon a time, the company I work for had a small network of Unix boxes devoted to one product line. Machine names were based on the names of the planets in our solar system. The QA guy assigned to this product line, Dick H. Ead, was a jerk. He really liked "keyboard smash" tests because he didn't have to document a detailed test methodology. "HULK SMASH!!" was the bulk of it. After a while Dick insisted on having his own private Unix machine on the network. Take a guess at the machine name he was assigned. I'll wait...
Software Zen: delete this;
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Maybe the name Dick explains it. That was also the director's name in my first development group. We were developing a business phone with multiple function keys, and this director would go into the lab every day and press those keys like crazy, crashing the peripheral device that front-ended the phones. "When is this going to be fixed?", he'd ask. It was a total pain because the system would never have shipped without what was affectionately known as babbling idiot detection, which results in the babbler being ignored. It's just that implementing it early during development isn't a priority.
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When I receive bug reports like this, I always insist on a detailed description of the test circumstances and procedure. Fortunately our bug management system lets me decide what amount of information is sufficient, so I keep turning reports back to the submitter until I'm satisfied I know enough the recreate the problem.Greg Utas wrote: implementing it early during development isn't a priority
Agreed. We've learned some hard lessons over the years about balancing process implementation versus moron avoidance.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: I always insist on a detailed description of the test circumstances and procedure
Also early in my career, a senior colleague received a bug report which read, "During the night, the attached log occurred." This was still in the day of hard-copy bug reports with attached printouts. His fix: "Turn off printer."
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Software Zen: delete this;
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The guy's name was actually Richard H. Ead?! Oh what a setup!
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The name has been changed to protect the inept.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Sounds like you owe your daughter an ice cream cone.
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