James Bach回答测友问题之三（How do you stay sharp as a tester?）

skinapi

原始链接请见：
http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/64
james bach回答了如何始终保持为一个反应灵敏的测试工程师的问题。

Shrini writes: How does a good tester keep his testing abilities sharpened all the times. compare it with keep our body fit as we grow old ( walking, jogging and going to Gym, eating healthyfood etc) - what you suggest for keeping “Tester health” in ‘fit and sound” condition?

Testing is analysis and problem solving. Here is what I did, this past week:

    * I solved about 50 problems from the book “Lateral Logic Puzzles” with my son.
    * Paul Jorgensen sent me an exploratory testing challenge, in the form of a spreadsheet with a bug in it. I investigated the bug and wrote a play-by-play description of what I did.
    * I wrote a Perl script to generate some experimental tests.
    * I practiced Sudoku with my Nintendo DS Sudoku game.
    * I analytically solved a conditional probability problem (the taxicab problem) that is often associated with the Representativeness Bias. This was part of working out a testing exercise based on that bias. (Then I tried the new exercise with Michael Bolton.)
    * I read some of a testing book from 1986 that Mike Kelly lent me. I’m trying to characterize the difference between “modern” testing ideas and those from 20 years ago.
    * This morning, I derived the formula for calculating the distance to the horizon based on eye level. It’s been a long time since I did trigonometry, but it was fun rediscovering sines and cosines.
    * I listened to a few hours of lectures from the Teaching Company about Neo-platonism and other philosophical trends of the dark and middle ages.
    * I skimmed several articles, including Knowledge And Software Engineering: A Methodological Framework To Symbiotic Software Process Modeling, and Blooming E-learning: Adapting Bloom’s Taxonomy into the content of e-learning course to promote life long learning through Metacognition, and Third Cybernetic Revolution: Beyond Open to Dialogic System Theories.
      It may not seem like it from the titles, but they have a lot to do with analyzing testing practices and becoming a better tester.
    * I received Pradeep’s Soundararajan’s startlingly incisive answer to the Wine Glass factoring exercise I gave him (“Describe all the dimensions of a wine glass that may be relevant to testing it.”), which helped me see more angles and subtleties to my question. Then I transpected with Michael Bolton as he worked through the same problem.
    * I worked on answers to testing questions submitted by my readers.

As you see, I stay sharp in testing by finding and solving problems, including testing problems; and reading or listening to philosophical ideas that I use to understand testing better; and by trying to help other testers learn, or by watching them learn; and by actually testing.

I’m not in a project, at the moment, for a paying client. If I were, I would be staying sharp by solving problems for my client. I do my best to find excuses to learn new things while working for pay.

When I worked at Apple Computer, I often stole away to the Donut Wheel, across the street, to read about software engineering. When I worked at Borland, I stayed late and worked on test methodology documents and articles. At SmartPatents, I learned Perl and formed my first thoughts about agile test automation.

Some people, and I know you are like this too, Shrini, sharpen themselves no matter what else is going on.

AlexanderIII

"Testing is analysis and problem solving."
"测试就是分析和解决问题."就是这个文章的中心思想.

他列举了上周他自己在生活中锻炼测试思想的例子来说明问题．还综述了一下例子所体现的观点：

一，依靠在生活中寻找问题并解决问题来增强自己的测试能力．

二，阅读并听哲学方面的知识来加深对测试的理解．

三，帮助其它测试者学习测试方面的知识或者是看着他们学习．

四，做真正的测试．


最后JAMES BACH 还提出了受薪的测试者所应有的对待测试工作的态度，就是要为了客户，而不断解决问题来磨练自己的测试技能．当在人家出薪水给你的时候，应该尽最大努力的去找理由来学习新的东西．

skinapi

算是读后感了，加分鼓励了，呵呵。

AlexanderIII

FAINT..好歹整个精华嘛...

kevintest

如何保持一个反应灵敏的测试工程师，这问题问的太好了，呵呵

mydreams

说得有道理，从中接受了新思想！