All posts by Markus Gärtner

Remembering Jerry: Exploring Requirements

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, we are going to take a look at another book Jerry co-authored with Donald C. Gause: Exploring Requirements – Quality Before Design published by Dorset House Publishing in 1989.

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The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 4: The Challenge

Back in 2011, I approached Rob Lambert at the Software Testing Club on a small series, packed into a narrative format as I wanted to try that out. Rob decided to run that series on the Software Testing Club back then, and I had some fun writing it. Skip forward 11 years, and the Software Testing Club no longer exists, it’s been a while since I have been in touch with Rob, yet I figured, let’s see how this series aged over the years. As a sort of throwback Friday for myself, I will publish the entries on a weekly basis, and read along with you. I think I ended up with eight chapters in the end and might add a reflection overall at the end. In case you want to catch up with the previous parts, I published these ones earlier:

Continue reading The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 4: The Challenge

Remembering Jerry: Are your lights on?

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, we are going to take a look at Are your lights on? – How to figure out what the problem REALLY is coauthored with Donald C. Gause. published by Dorset House Publishing in 1990.

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The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 3: Fallacies and Pitfalls

Back in 2011, I approached Rob Lambert at the Software Testing Club on a small series, packed into a narrative format as I wanted to try that out. Rob decided to run that series on the Software Testing Club back then, and I had some fun writing it. Skip forward 11 years, and the Software Testing Club no longer exists, it’s been a while since I have been in touch with Rob, yet I figured, let’s see how this series aged over the years. As a sort of throwback Friday for myself, I will publish the entries on a weekly basis, and read along with you. I think I ended up with eight chapters in the end and might add a reflection overall at the end. In case you want to catch up with the previous parts, I published these ones earlier:

Continue reading The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 3: Fallacies and Pitfalls

How to handle technical debt?

Over the years, I have seen many companies struggling with paying off technical debt and legacy code. Heck, I produced legacy code within a 45-minute session at a code retreat on my own, so consider me guilty as charged as well. Over the years, I have seen a pretty tiny fraction of companies actually managing their technical debt. So, here are a few stories that I oftentimes share from these companies and how they tackled technical debt and legacy code – with no claim for this to be a complete list of things that might work. Please add any additional advice you want to share in the comments.

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Remembering Jerry: Computer Programming Fundamentals

It’s been four years since – sadly – Gerald M. “Jerry” Weinberg passed away. Ever since then, I struggled with some public mourning about him, until recently I had just the right idea. On a weekly basis, I will publish a review of a book I read that Jerry either wrote himself or is about some of his work. Today, we are going to take a look at one of his earliest works I could get my hands on Computer Programming Fundamentals, co-authored with Herbert D. Leeds. published by McGraw-Hill in 1961.

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The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 2: Facing the Business with Automation

Back in 2011, I approached Rob Lambert at the Software Testing Club on a small series, packed into a narrative format as I wanted to try that out. Rob decided to run that series on the Software Testing Club back then, and I had some fun writing it. Skip forward 11 years, and the Software Testing Club no longer exists, it’s been a while since I have been in touch with Rob, yet I figured, let’s see how this series aged over the years. As a sort of throwback Friday for myself, I will publish the entries on a weekly basis, and read along with you. I think I ended up with eight chapters in the end and might add a reflection overall at the end. In case you want to catch up with the previous parts, I published these ones earlier:

Continue reading The Deliberate Tester – Chapter 2: Facing the Business with Automation