testing with QA

One of the frustrating tasks can easily be the testing. When you are developer, you are asked to do the unit test and sometimes system testing, the full scaled test. It is a tricky thing in my opinion and here is why. When you are programing, you are confined within the parameters, usually the business requirement, things like with this rule with this condition, and those baselines, I need the program to produce this result or range of results. But when you are done, you are facing the whole another range of test, the system test. Now the QA is not going to just test what you just did, she/he is going to pull out all she can, which is a right thing to do and make sure all is good. So it is a better idea to sit with QA team to come up with a plan and know what to expect first before you even start.

On the system test, it is even more important to sit with QA team first. Anything on the system side or the database side, QA team need to know what and how they should. Now they are functioning like a powerful tool and DBAs, system admins are the owners of the test. In the data sensitive setting, when you need SAN storage for your database and multiple CPU configurations or multiple database parameters to be tested, there are even more considerations need to be thought through. Questions like, how to make sure every test is using the same base data? what are the data matrix you are collecting? what are they steps/changes for each test? how to make sure we are testing with same code? how to make the test more efficient? sometimes setting up the test environment can take up weeks.

Many things can drag down the progress of the test. The number one being not knowing exactly what one is testing. One example, a unix admin is testing a system parameter which was said to make big difference in system calls, but instead of using the existing setup to test the before and test affect, she is asking to take the system to its max. Because she is sidetracked by the problem, why is everything ok with 200 users but not 800 users? well does your test need 800 users? the answer is no in this case, 200 users is more than enough to generate system calls you want to test. Secondly always keep a very detailed testing log, it is very easy to get lost in testing, the long hours, the starvation, and the nagging boss. When talking about those tests, people are asking for numbers and you better have them. Thirdly, pushing people and make sure the testing is moving along. Sometime, when we encounter an application issue, between the admins, we are lost and clueless and we are guess, it is not to bring in the expertise, the programers in this case, they wrote the thing, let them handle this. I know they are busy, but you need to get your testing done, bring out the nagging boss if you have to, to have them nag others to get your things done. Lastly, analyze the data, if you can chart it, great, that way everybody know what is going on, even the business people.