Internationalizing your website or application is both easy, and hard. At the basic level it’s substituting in different strings and resources based on locale, but it gets much more complicated quickly. Continue reading
Finding defects quickly and efficiently brings great benefits. Developers can correct problems while code is still fresh in their head. Management can make more informed decisions about the state of the software. Defects are less likely to make it to customers. Continue reading
The aesthetics (look and feel) and usability of a user facing application matter. Users will form perceptions about the software based on these factors. Continue reading
Requirements for software of any complexity, are never complete. There are always unstated assumptions, edge cases, and ambiguities that will remain. Continue reading
Documentation of functionality or test cases is always imperfect. The trick is to do enough to serve your needs, and not waste effort on documentation that will never be used. Continue reading
Expand your effectiveness by learning to take multiple perspectives. This expands the number of possible solutions and options you have. Continue reading
Repeatedly in my career, lack of attention to detail has lead to quality problems. As a result attention to details is one of the behaviors I pay a lot of attention to in developers. Continue reading
One of the strategies I find myself returning to for testing is looking at the kinds of mistakes that are made. Often a pattern can be found. Individuals tend to make the same type of mistake over and over. Continue reading
Hi, I’m Neil. I work at Vistaprint. I spend most of my time writing software or tools to help test other software.
Continue readingEarly in my career I worked for a company that tried to adopt the ISO 9000 standard to drive the software development process. I was already working on a disaster project, with both poor design and implementation. Rather than help correct course on the project the attempt to adopt the standard added to the chaos. Continue reading
