There was an interesting discussion about performance tester skills in SQA forum. I believe that the latest Scott Barber's column in Software Test & Performance (see pp. 10-11) is a very interesting generalization for that discussion. Indeed, performance testers should be both detailed oriented and see the big picture. Probably that is the main requirement. Any particular knowledge or skill is not too important. Anyway you will need to learn something new each day (and ability to do that is probably another requirement). My reflections about performance-related roles are probably in line with Scott’s idea (as far as I understand it). Running performance tests and tracking results (as in “narrow” definition of performance tester) mainly requires micro-vision. Performance analysis requires macro-vision. Both together give “wide” definition of performance tester.
There is also another very interesting discussion between Scott Barber and Ainars Galvans about relationship between performance and functional testers. And here I am ready to sign under each Scott’s word.
My understanding is that macro-vision is not so necessary for a functional tester (although it definitely won’t hurt and I quite sure that many functional testers have that ability). Quite often I saw that missing the big picture is the main problem when a team of functional testers conducts performance testing (while learning how to script in a load testing tool usually wasn’t a big problem).
So if we speak about “wide” definition of performance tester, including performance analysis, I’d say that is a separate role. And I have seen often enough that approaching that as a set of activities lead to problems because the big picture is lost. If we speak about “narrow” definition of performance tester, assuming that we have a separate performance analyst, we perhaps can talk about activity – with a separate role of performance analyst (even if it is spread between several specialists).
Of course, it not so white and black in real life. Each person has a unique combination of skills and each system may require different set of skills.作者: AlexanderIII 时间: 2006-9-20 22:43
头一个看,头一个顶作者: ganjingwen22 时间: 2007-7-19 14:40
这里好象只讲了一下性能测试的理论，以及性能测试应该从什么角度看待，并没有具体的讲到实际的测试技巧吧，感觉有点跟题目不符喔！
这里纯属个人意见，如有错误，请指出。