My talk delivered at the UK Test Management Forum on 2015-07-29. http://uktmf.com/?q=node/5283 As a test manager I don't test as much as I'd like to so I try to find ways to stay loose and ready for those occasions where I get the chance. In this talk I'll describe one activity based on joking that I think can fit the bill. How? Well, the punchline for a joke could be a violation of some expectation, the exposure of some ambiguity, an observation that no one else has made, or just making a surprising connection. Jokes can make you think and then laugh. But they don't always work. Does that sound familiar? It started with the weekly caption competition at Linguamatics where I noticed parallels in my approach to it and testing. For instance, I might take each of the key entities in the picture and "factor" them - generate a list of features, related concepts, synonyms and so on. In testing I might then look for overlapping factors for potentially interesting test ideas, in the quest for a caption I might try to use the same approach to find an ambiguity and hence a joke. Doing this, I've found analogies between joking and concepts from testing such as oracles, heuristics, factoring, stopping strategies, bug advocacy and the possibility that a bug, today, in this context might not be one tomorrow or in another. I'm interested to find out from the audience what things they "just do" that they feel helps them.

1. YOU’RE HAVING A
LAUGH
James Thomas
Linguamatics
UKTMF. July 2015
@qahiccupps, qahiccupps.blogspot.co.uk
james.thomas@linguamatics.com
@qahiccupps

2. I write notes all the time ... anything interesting that comes to
me ... but the notes are not the thing. The thing is the fact that
I'm watching out for stuff ... like a boxer keeping loose ... on
stage I hope they'll all come together.KEEPING LOOSE
(Phil Kay)
@qahiccupps

3. Keeping Loose
• Joking
• … is like testing (for me)
• When I think of a corny joke …
• … I force myself to find two more …
• … with some aspects in common
• The restriction simulates real world constraints; forces creativity
@qahiccupps

4. There's no black and
white in politics, only
graze
@qahiccupps

5. Jokes…
•Violate some expectation
•Expose an ambiguity
•Point out the thing that’s
been ignored in plain sight
•Make a surprising
connection
@qahiccupps

6. … and Testing?
•Testing finds issues that
•Violate some expectation
•Expose an ambiguity
•Point out the thing that’s been
ignored in plain sight
•Make a surprising connection
@qahiccupps

7. A Joke
• Two components:
• surprise: say, by a violated expectation
• coherence: how well the joke fits to the context
• But, the non-sequitur:
Q: Why was the programmer debugging at midnight?
A: Fish.
• Definition of a joke is heuristic
• Useful rule
• Fallible
(Brownell and Gardner, in their essay in Laughing Matters)
@qahiccupps

8. Genesis of a Joke
• 2 January 2015, Tim Western posted a joke on Twitter:
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early on new years?
A: His application needed a little REST.
• Two missions:
• “test” the joke
• “design” a joke from the same premise
@qahiccupps

9. Mission #1: Test the Joke
• Sufficiency, necessity – New Year
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early?
A: His application needed a little REST.
• Consistency – Dev sent home but application needs REST?
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early?
A: He needed REST.
• Balance surprise and coherence – “need” vs “want”
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early?
A: He wanted REST.
@qahiccupps

10. Relative Rule
For any abstract X:
X is X to some person, at some time
(Michael Bolton)
• A joke is a joke to some person at some time
• An issue is an issue to some person at some time
• Have you ever had to spell an issue out?
• They just don’t get it
• Surprise vs coherence
@qahiccupps

11. Mission #2: Design
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early on new years?
• Factoring:
• Web - HTTP, SOAP, browser, internet, Javascript, AJAX
• developer - code, script, IDE, bugs
• new year - 31st, 1st, annual, fireworks, resolution
• home - home page, house, street, homing pigeon
• work - job, position, meetings, requirements, responsibilities
A1: Was he sent home or did he desert his POST?
A2: Hopefully he was PUT in his place.
A3: He's now considering his OPTIONS.
• Fault vs Failure
• These “failures” stem from the same underlying “fault”
@qahiccupps

12. Mission #2: Design
• Stopping strategies
• Time, deadline, other work, risk, value, statistical test, …
A4: And so on ...
• Plunge in and Quit
• I can always come back!
• Factoring
• Javascript: common libraries such as node.js, jQuery, D3
• node: sounds like "knowed“, "no-ed"
• Ajax: sounds like "Hey Jacks", "Age Axe", "A Jacks"
@qahiccupps

13. Mission #2: Design
• Lateral Thinking
• Be open to off-track thoughts
• Deliberately provoke off-track thoughts
• Example: decomposition
eleph-ant - the biggest insect in the world
unpleas-ant - the worst insect to be around
deodor-ant - the nicest smelling insect
• jQuery: sounds like "Jake weary"
• Work back from result to context
• From theoretical to practical
• Does it have coherence?
@qahiccupps

14. Mission #2: Design
• Iteration, rote generation
• Jake said he was weary
• The boss saw that Jake was weary
• Jake's weary programming
• Was Jake weary?
• The boss saw Jake weary
• Oracles
• Do I think it’s funny?
Q: Why was the web developer sent home early on new years?
A5: The boss hated to see Jake weary
• Negate the premise
@qahiccupps

15. Keeping Loose
• When I think of a corny joke …
• … I force myself to find two more …
• … with some aspects in common
• The restriction simulates real world constraints; forces creativity
• Cheap and easy training method
• No software, tools, preparation, resources needed
@qahiccupps

16. Other Ways
• Blogging
• Writing
• Discovering and clustering ideas
• Introspection
• Discipline
@qahiccupps
I don't pretend that every thought I
have is revolutionary, revelatory or
even revealable … but by forcing
myself to think I am getting in the
habit of thinking and, I hope, thinking
is becoming my habit.
(Hiccupps)

17. Other Ways
• Blog Images
• Making connections
• Focus/Defocus
• Exploration
@qahiccupps@qahiccupps

18. Summary
• Some things I ‘just do’ help me in my job
• Joking
• Blogging
• Blog images
• Like drills for an athlete
• We don’t all need to be comedians
• … we probably all do something
@qahiccupps

19. Over to You
• What do you ‘just do’ to stay loose?
• James Christie: checking relationships; number factoring
• Cambridge Tester Meetup:
• Unicycling down mountains
• Intense self-observation
• How does it help you?
• Have you refined it? How?
• Can it be used by others?
• What’s common across these kinds of things?
• Can they be motivational (to our teams?)
• Is there a real effect here?
@qahiccupps

20. YOU’RE HAVING A
LAUGH
James Thomas
Linguamatics
UKTMF. July 2015
@qahiccupps, qahiccupps.blogspot.co.uk
james.thomas@linguamatics.com
@qahiccupps