I ask questions

Before you read this, keep in mind, that I speak the German language better, because I grew up with it.

I try to give you as reader articles which are as good as possible (of course considering cost and value). Lately I have started to translate my English articles into German (reason here). While doing this, I recognized, that I could have written some articles better.

So, if you think you have nothing to add anymore (well, there is always a better version possible) to an article or you do not want to continue or other reasons, then translate it into another language.

This is my first article which I wrote multilangual on the same day:
1. first in English and
2. then translated into German
3. while doing step 2, I had some new ideas on the result of step 1

I think this will help you to think again more on some words. Because while translating, you are forced to think more on the meaning of one word.
Sometimes I see, that I use English words by instinct – perhaps because I read them a lot and I am used to them (you see the vicious circle?). But when I try to translate them, I sometimes stop, because I do not immediately find the pendant in German. I know what it means, but the German translation hangs on my lips. Somehow it does not find the way out
Then I use a tool – e.g. I use an online translation service (LEO). I am offered several translations. And since German is a language where you can express with different meanings, this gets interesting. With this I get other associations activated in my brain.

You could say, it costs time – this is true. But try it and tell me, if you and your article profit from it or not.

Erkan YILMAZ

What’s the story about this notepad?

While writing this posting, my buddy Chris came along and I told him that I am writing a story about my notepad. He only had a short look at the first sentence and said: “Well, that is a diary – what is so special to write a blog article about it?” He is right: it is nothing special – for him, perhaps also for you too. It is a notepad which costs 70 Euro-Cent and which can be bought at many places. But it is special for me - for what is written in it. I asked him: “Do you have one?” He shook his head and I explained him, what effect it has on me (well, I will not say too much here – not yet - here some preview).
So, if you feel like this posting has no value to you, it may be, because my (or should I say: your ?) context is different.

OK, let’s start with the notepad story:
I am wearing the notepad since this month and write down things that I observe. What kind of things? Well, it always depends: things which I find interesting; for example good or not so good actions of myself; … I hope you can guess what I mean.
At the beginning when others saw the notepad they asked: “What is this for?” - they were curious (this is a good attitude). Now they got used to it.
Perhaps I needed this booklet to help me reflect upon things. Before, I also tried to write, when I came home. But this did not work out that good. Now the notepad is always with me, I do not feel it anymore – it has become a part of me. I just grab it and can reflect on the content, when I want to. I only take it off, when I go to sleep or when I take a shower.
As I told Chris, the content of the notepad and what this lets me do counts. The notepad helps me in changing. Changing to what? Well, let’s see that.

You probably think now: “Erkan did not detail enough.” Well, from time to time I will tell some stories. My intention for now is to tell only this and that these 70 Cent were a very good investment. Please also try it out yourself. Let the others joke about it. Unfortunately they miss something, since they do not try. Would these 70 Cent really be such a high loss?

Now only four pages are left - so I will need a new one pretty soon.

edit on 2007 April 2:
I bought today not only one notepad. Reason: I got a discount after asking This will probably last for about 1 year.

Erkan YILMAZ

Today I added a language switcher (English and German) for the blog articles.
Reason is this: I would like to see more involvement from German speaking testers online (remember: there is Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
I will invest now time to translate the articles into German. I do this, because I think it could help inspire more German speaking readers.

I am asking myself, why e.g. some places for testers to meet have limited access and also require a fee? So far I did not see any other German blogging place for testers like
TestingReflections or the Indian software testing bloggers community.
This is my personal view - who knows, perhaps I did not search enough. If so, please drop me a message.

All we need, we get for free (blogs with web space, ideas to write about, …).
I must say, that I have gained already a lot because of interacting online with people and blogging. So, why don’t you want to get rich in experience?

Everybody can participate - testing means asking questions. So everybody could test and learn to test respectively, let’s join multiple fields together: could be anyone from … to … (with purpose I do not write more, because anything is possible).

If you are someone who questions and you have a blog or website, contact me.
Let’s unite and share ideas.
I have already some ideas and platform features I can provide. But I am also eager to hear your opinion.

Erkan YILMAZ

A friend
inspired me today to increase my questioning skill.

So, I decided to show this also in the name of my blog:
Iaskquestions.com

I was talking with a friend and at some time he told me a German sentence – I was impressed, because it was grammatically correct and also the pronunciation was good. Later he told a 2nd sentence – and again I was impressed (but this time the pronunciation was not so good ). When I asked about the German sentences, he told he used Google translator. I told that Google translator must be good.
But the next 3 translated sentences proved me wrong – I could not get the meaning at all. Also not, when I translated the sentence word for word back to English (reason: I assumed Google would translate it like this). So I had to take back my initial assumption.
But did I have enough data to say something at all on the quality?

So, we agreed, that I do some further testing on this.

How did I proceed?

1. Search some background info on Google translator (e.g. it was fed with 200 billion words).

2. But well, I did not want to read at that time too much and also maintain my curiosity, so I continued like this:
get me some random sentences.

I went to yahoo and searched for “english site” and took this website for getting me some random English text. Reason: this is a site especially for learning and teaching English – as it tells: “A web-site for teachers and learners of English as a secondary language from a German point of view”.
So, my intention here was: to get something for the benefit for Google, as I assume this kind of text would be better translated (do not get me wrong: for testing I would take later some text which is e.g. more technical, nested, … to challenge the application more )

3. Then I decided to take about every 5th sentence from there (why every 5th? well, which would you have used?) - here are the 16 sentences.

4. So, I started to translate these sentences with Google translator to German (since I have no version info on Google Translator for rechecking later: at 20.3.2007, 21:38 German time (GMT+1)). The sentences which (from my point of view) were translated perfect, I marked with OK - see here the results.
So this makes until now a ratio of about 48% (2 out of the 5 sentences from the conversation and 8 from the above 16 sentences).

Then I translated the remaining 8 not-OK sentences how I would like them myself (using one time LEO) - see here.

Actually the tests are not yet finished, I just gave some random input (16 sentences only - from my point of view easy sentences) to get me an impression on the quality. So, we have now a number - 48% - whatever this might tell. I wonder how much other online translators (Babelfish uses Systran, PROMT, … ) would achieve? But does this prove anything so far? It just tells: for these sentences it had this result - how good this works for each one of us is another case.

But well, it is late and perhaps you can help me testing? Otherwise I will continue soon.

I searched (of course in Google ) for other old bugs from Google translator. Found e.g. these: hit, hit, hit

Erkan YILMAZ

BTW:
Michael has listed here web services for English/German + vice versa translations. My all time favorite is LEO.
Michael plans to write a series on translation tools - so drop by his blog.

I got this idea from Mike Kelly’s blog What’s your credit score?

Please read it and then come back (if not, no problem, testingreflections has lots of good blogs).

I implemented this technique also and I see some positive effect.
I have a blackboard in the company where I paint my share price for different aspects (won’t tell you now what
aspects exactly - this is my secret for now. But if it helps you: also nobody else knows it, it is in coded form ).
On the X-axis I have my aspects and the Y-axis has 3 values: good, middle, bad

The great thing with this is:
Every time I see it, I think of how to improve my share value, so that at the end of the day I am a top seller
As it was told in the posting above, sometimes it is hard to maintain your value on top. But no worries, there is always a next day at the stock exchange.

I can recommend this - get yourself a blackboard or alike immediately.

Erkan YILMAZ

Lately I have consumed a lot of information. Now it is time to digest this all.

I do not want to belch like people perhaps would do when they eat a lot. Let’s see if there will come more than just this kind of air through my mouth. After I have fully digested, you will see some more activity in this blog.

Erkan YILMAZ

I guess you remember the article about “skills of doctors + testers“?
I am interviewing at the moment people, which I never met before (Namasté Pradeep ).

If I am sitting somewhere and have some time (because in 5 minutes you can not talk that deep), I start a talk with strangers around me and get to know details on their profession. Of course some people are not willing to talk to strangers, but some are
Reason is: I want to know what I can use for my profession from their profession/experience. Won`t tell you now, what the result is - must still do some more research.

So far I had following professions (sorted alphabetically):
financial auditor
innkeeper
metalworker
office management assistant
varnisher

Erkan YILMAZ

My mouse is at the moment not behaving well (may be it is already too old):
for example: I can not select a text with several words anymore
(e.g. normal behaviour would be:
1. press on the left mouse button + keep it pressed
2. move the mouse cursor to the end of what you want to mark
3. release now the left mouse button
now the text is marked)
but: selecting a single word works with double click

sometimes also one left click makes 2 left clicks at once - let’s see what other failures I will encounter.

At first this was very unpleasant, because it costs more time: now I am forced to do the same actions with other methods: e.g. copy+paste by cursor.
These things interrupt me in my normal behaviour. They pull me out of my thoughts and I must think how to solve this to complete my goal.

It is interesting how much the mouse as input device influences our life.
Didn’t think much about it - but now I am also eager not to buy that fast a mouse (of course I will buy a new mouse eventually, if all begging to my mouse won’t help), so I can learn more from this.
Imagine: if during testing your mouse gets disabled somehow, would you still be able to continue testing (when seeing testing now in the context of executing tests on the test object) as effective or efficient as you want? See it as a test for you, when something interrupts you a lot during testing, are you able to master this?
I also want to learn how I can use other input devices even more (e.g. keyboard with the appropriate short cuts; observing, if a program offers me other possibilities to do what I want to do,…)

Also: I want to try to heal my mouse by mental thoughts
(I also had a look inside it and cleaned my mouse, but this did not help) - I am not giving up hope now, my mouse served me well in the past, so why not wait a little longer, before I put it in the trash can? Wonders may happen. Imagine which other objects/persons in your life are touched so often as your mouse by your hand, would you also treat them like this, when they do not “serve” you no more?

Erkan YILMAZ

If you are from India, now here is your chance:
you can call Pradeep Soundararajan and make a date for a 2 hour Mirchi Test Masala (btw: Mirchi Masala is Indian and means “spices”). I bet you will gain new insights from this 2 hour free talk.
As Pradeep tells: an expert is someone who inspires you to think (even) more.
Click here, to read more.

Lately I was quite active in some online places. I did not see the consequences. Now I realize what happened.

I wanted to show and prove me that I am able of doing this and that in software testing.
But so less I knew - these are just exterior things, tools.

So, I decided to decrease my online activities to a few, so I can concentrate on my personal skills more.
And this needs reflection and time.

I hope you are not disappointed about this - be happy for me, that I made such a decision.
Like always in life, there are many ways to look on something: without these activities, I probably would not have realized, what is really important. And I am thankful for this.
I am sure, you will see, that version 2.0 of Erkan will be much better than version 1.0

Erkan Yilmaz

In this series I would like to show my view on:
how is the relationship between skills in other professions and in testing.
(Well, actually since I believe that everybody tests at any time - at least unknowingly - it is no real comparison)

Since my profession is that of a tester (yes, you read correct, I truly identify myself as tester), I will let others speak for their profession. Reason is: they know probably better which skills are the important ones. I will try later also to assess from my opinion, but why not let someone involved in the material speak first? My task is to find the best sources and list them here.
I am sure there are other views than what I got in my fingers - if you find a better one (there is always a better version) tell me please.

Dr. Ulrike Hennemann tells in her article “Is my doctor a good doctor?” how patients can check themselves for the quality of their medical care, because:
many people would - so she tells - ask themselves if the doctor they confide in matters of precaution or in case of illness masters really the craft. From the following, people can not read the knowledge and skills: that the doctor is friendly, wears always a fresh ironed white coat or offers a comfortable waiting room.

She then lists the following points of a good doctor:
- being up to date in the area of expertise
- take care for the patients
- make correct diagnoses
- select the correct therapy according to the circumstances
- transfer early enough to a specialist

-being up to date in the area of expertise
she tells that patients can ask their doctor, if s(he) regularly takes part in further education. She tells that the doctor might look first piqued, but should understand this and see it as positive.

What would you answer as tester, if you are asked, if you regularly do something for your education (in testing)? Thanks to the internet there is many good material available. You just have to reserve the time. It really is so simple. So, now there is no excuse anymore for you.
Testing may seem as a simple task for outsiders, but we testers know it is much more. We have so much to learn and so many ways to evolve. Start this by educating yourself as soon as possible. You are the one who is responsible for your education - no one else will take care for it.

-take care for the patients
Does the doctor listen carefully? address the issue appropriate on questions? explains the examination and therapy recommendations? Do you leave the doctor with the good feeling that your issue was taken seriously and the doctor did the best possible for you?
Dr. Hennemann tells, when she has to go to a doctor it is for her important, that she does not have to wait too long. She tells that has not directly something to do with the quality of the doctor, but indirect: if a doctor values on behalf of the patients and his/her team on time scheduling, probably (s)he also is good in the above 5 points.

So, let’s find out, who would be actually our patients? In the patient doctor scenario, the patient comes to the doctor to get help. Who do we help as testers? There are different groups whom we help: our stakeholders and/or our colleagues, our friends + family (I mean testing does not stop, when we leave office), ourselves - pretty much anybody
I also would go so far, that we help our test object. It comes to us and asks for help, but then somehow is ashamed - after we find so many problems - to tell all its flaws. Sometimes it is also just to make our time worth while, it brings us to different problems, so that our life even gets more interesting and challenging. So, why not help in return the test object by making it even better for these favors?

Do you always take appropriate care for the people/test objects coming to you? Do they come back again to search for your advise? Think about it, do they thank you, appreciate you?

-make correct diagnoses
if a therapy was successful, most of the time the diagnosis also was correct. But also experienced, good educated doctors do not get the assessment about the causes of the symptoms correct always right at first. There are ways to prevent unneeded expensive examinations. For smaller pains, doctors can use your telling and simple examination methods (e.g. listen with the stethoscope, scanning with their hand the part of the body) to pose first a suspected diagnosis, which is most likely and start after this the first treatment try.

Imagine 2000 years ago as doctor the technical possibilities were limited. Therefore medical thinking and acting was based on correct interpretation of signs of the body. Do you have all the technical equipment you need/wish?
As testers we always have less time than we want. In such a case wasting the time with unneeded tests can be painful (also for your stakeholders). Take advantage of all your information sources you have. Observe everything and infer from these. When you collect and analyze, you get closer to the solution of the problem. You should always seek for a logical/qualitative reason for your assumptions.
Start to question yourself always, is this really correct what I do? Is there not a better way to find the most critical problems? Trust your instinct, but also take advise. If possible start a journal - so you are forced to reflect on your decisions. What went wrong or was good? And why? Also: the better diagnoses you pose, the more credibility you will have.

-select the correct therapy according to circumstances
if for a certain time the first treatment try was not successful, more detailed and expensive technical methods are used (e.g. ultrasound) to find the cause for the symptoms.
But doctors should be allowed also to make mistakes. It is not uncommon that even skilled doctors do not see the cause immediately and therefore not start the correct therapy. In such a case visit again your doctor, so (s)he can analyze this more.

The first diagnose is important, but how to proceed then? Each patient is different and needs different approaches/methods. So, how can we treat/cure/minimize our patients problems? The more experience you have, the more ways you know to have a direct or indirect influence on others/other things. You can help then depending on the context.
Also by giving them good bug reports, we give them help to identify the main problems. I mean, finding bugs is essential, but what, if the bugs aren’t communicated good enough? So the bugs would then be not known or fixed fast enough? As testers we give as much info as possible as soon as possible to identify the critical bugs. So, let’s do this in the best way possible.
Here are links, how to write good bug reports and to convince the reader of the bug report to fix them:
Cem Kaner, Effective bug reporting (slides, video)

What always helps is to understand, that quality is everybody’s matter - only together as team a good product will be released.

-transfer early enough to a specialist
as a patient you can hardly assess when the time has come that you are transferred to a specialist. But you can set the impulse yourself, when your pain does not go away, ask your doctor to be transferred. If your doctor does not agree, (s)he surely will tell the reasons.

So, you are like the rest of us: you make errors or you do not know everything?
If you have made an error, admit this and try to do the best to rescue the situation, otherwise you will lose credibility. Also: we are just humans, we can not see/catch every Darwin bug.
[So, what is a Darwin bug?
Some bugs (I call them Darwin bugs ) are difficult to find by us and other bugs are easily found. The bugs compete with each other to come to life. So what makes the Darwin-bugs better than the others? What do they have? How does it happen that they pass all the barriers? What are their characteristics?]

Humans are not God, so show your lack of knowledge instead of showing false mastery, which will lead to unhappiness on both sides. Actually don’t the Alcoholics Anonymous also tell: “My name is … and I am an alcoholic.” So, if you do not know something, tell this also frankly: “I am tester … and I do not know this, please go to …”. You could add: “I will use my free time and improve my skill in that area, so I can help you better next time.”

Remember, in “The Hippocratic Oath” (from 400 B.C.) it is written:
“… I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art. …”
This was a way of risk minimizing for the doctor.
In the old times besides ethical reasons also monetary reasons played a role for this. It would have been bad for the reputation of the doctor to worsen the illness with a wrong treatment.

In her article Dr. Hennemann also lists a checklist for “How to recognize a good doctor’s practice?”.

Dr. Ulrike Hennemann
is a doctor and editor-in-chief for Medical Tribune
printed in:
Medical Tribune, Gesundheit & Medizin
title: “Ist mein Arzt ein guter Arzt?” (engl. “Is my doctor a good doctor?“)
page 41-43
December 2006, Medical Tribune Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
Wiesbaden, Germany

Cem Kaner, “Effective bug reporting” (Tutorial session) 15th International Software Quality Conference (Quality Week), San Francisco, CA, September, 2002.

Wikipedia about The Hippocratic Oath

Imagine you are binding your shoe laces.
Now close your eyes for a moment and really imagine this !

1st question: With which shoe lace do you begin?
2nd question: Do you start most of the time with the right or the left one?
3rd question: Did you ever think of starting with the other shoe lace?
4th question: If not, why?

Question 3 I had, when binding my shoe laces. So, I select always another shoe lace than the day before.
I think when you start with small things like this, this can help to not take the usual paths and also take other ones, which you do not take anymore.

Imagine since how long you always have this habbit with the shoe laces.
What would be different when starting with the other one first? Would this cost a little more time? Could your brain get activated a little more? What do you think?

How about, if you extend this to other things like:
Writing with the other hand. Well, this would be difficult at beginning. But it will let you think of situations which you normally not think of: e.g. people who are disabled.
Wouldn’t this change perspective for you? When was the last time you thought of disabled people?

How about entering the car from the co-driver side?
This takes probably more time. Probably others could think: “This (wo)man is crazy.” or “When does (s)he repair the other door?”
But don’t you think you would see your car from another perspective? When did you sit the last time on the co-driver side of your own car?

I guess you get the idea…
You always have the choice which way to take - would it be that bad to take also other ways?

Erkan Yilmaz