Maaike Brinkhof's blog

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testing

The abysmal state of ‘testing’ in 2016

I wish I didn’t have to write this blogpost, but here goes. Time to bring out the famous hammer metaphor. As a child I learned how to use a hammer. Not that I’m an expert user, but I’m skilled enough to slap some nails into a wall

Be a Zero

I recently read a book called “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” by Chris Hadfield, and man….I can only say: read this book! It’s very inspirational and very educational about how going to space works. The author manages to transform space-related things he learned into practical

Repetition in testing

Many people in the IT industry seem to hate repetition. Doing something more than once? Silly you, automate it! What strikes me as funny is that it’s probably not all that easy to automate some of these things. It takes time! But apparently, that’s not what matters. It’

Mapping biases to testing, Part 1: Introduction

We humans are weird. We think we can produce bug free software. We think we can plan projects. We think we can say “I’ve tested everything”, but how is that possible when we are governed by biases in our thinking? We simply cannot think about everything in advance, although

Testing doesn't innovate?

Testing doesn't innovate?

I was reading an interesting article that stated: * Testing as a skilled profession doesn’t get the respect that it deserves * Testing hasn’t kept pace with other parts of IT in terms of innovation. I don’t have a silver bullet answer to what we can do to improve

Rediscover your focus

Rediscover your focus

So you’ve been working on the same project for quite awhile. Say, more than a year. Testing the same application, ‘doing yer thing’. I mean, we cannot all be flashy consultants moving from project A to project B in a matter of months. Personally, I like building up a

Agile Testing Days - Day 3

Agile Testing Days - Day 3

Yesterday, after the last keynote I went to look at the car building party, which looked awesome and chaotic at the same time. People were really into it, and looked sweaty and excited. I went to the bar with a colleague of mine to have a nice talk over a