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Testing Foundations

Consulting in Software Testing

Brian Marick

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Brian Marick's Resume

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abqsdn@r.postjobfree.com SUMMARY

My focus is the intersection of testing and programming in projects with changing requirements, frequent releases, and an emphasis on communication (in two words, agile projects). In that intersection, I concentrate on three things:

helping programmers test. I especially enjoy sitting down in pairs or small groups and showing programmers what test-first programming is like.

helping testers program. For automated tests, I recommend common scripting languages like . For that to be successful, the product must have testability interfaces. That's both a technical matter and a social one. What are the right interfaces? How are people persuaded to create them and use them?

shifting the emphasis of testing from "finding bugs" to "specification by example." When testing is done before coding, it becomes a matter of collaboratively exploring the possibilities of the product, then writing decisions down in a way most useful to programmers.

I also consult on other types of testing in other types of projects,but be warned: I will encourage them to move in the Agile directionor, if more suitable, in the direction that some of my and I call"context-driven".

I strongly favor over classroom-style training.EMPLOYMENT

1992 - present:

As a consultant, my responsibility is to teach testers andprogrammers what they need to know, help managers understand what theiremployees need, and consult on process improvement and testing strategy(typically, how to do more within a fixed cost).

I have been a technical editor of since Volume 1 (1999).

1988 - 1992: Motorola Microcomputer Division

Motorola MCD produced UNIX systems, including one of the firstsymmetric multiprocessor systems on the market. I led an effort thatspecifically targeted the risks of such systems, constructed a tool tobetter evaluate existing stress tests, and wrote tests that targetedunder-stressed parts of the system. The effort was a notably successfulpart of the overall testing program, discovering a high number ofseverity 1 bugs and producing a set of tests used by testers anddevelopers until Motorola exited that business.

Motorola funded joint research with the University of Illinois,where I concentrated on extensible, cost-effective testing techniques,including development of supporting tools and experimental evaluation.The techniques formed the basis for my book, The Craft of SoftwareTesting. One ofthe tools (the ) wasused in the stress testing effort and has since been released underan open source license. Although now rather old, I believe it is stillused in some UNIX shops.

1984 - 1988: Gould Computer Systems Division

I was chief programmer and later project manager for a port andenhancement of CMU Common Lisp. The project was ill-conceived, therebeing no market for Common Lisp on Gould hardware, but it was atechnical success, in large part because of my insistence on soundtesting during development.

After that project, I rejoined the mainstream of the UrbanaDevelopment Center, whose task was to add real-time extensions to UNIX.I was project manager for a training project staffed with new hires.They were to learn how to develop software well while doing real tasksof moderate criticality. This project was successful, as measured by thelater success of the participants, most of whom went off tosignificantly better jobs.

1981 - 1984: Compion Corporation

In my first job out of college, I tested, then developed, networkprotocol modules for UNIX. Although I left testing early, its influencelingered, and there was always a strong testing component to myprogramming work. The interaction between testing and programmingremains central to my thinking.

Compion Corporation also did secure computing work for the U.S.government. As part of this work, it developed a design verificationsystem for proving the correctness of designs specified in a variant offirst-order predicate calculus. I wrote the language parser, aspecification checker, and most of the user documentation. I alsodeveloped a training course. LANGUAGES

In January, 2005, I am most fluent in, with Java as my secondary language and Python as my tertiary language. I am somewhat rusty in C and Lisp (Common Lisp and Emacs Lisp). I have insignificantexperience with C++, Objective-C, Smalltalk, and Delphi.SERVICE

Chair of the Agile Alliance board during 2004-2005. The Agile Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting people on Agile projects and causing more Agile projects to exist.

Track chair for the Essays track.

Program chair for the 2003 (PLoP) conference.

Program committee member for the XP Agile Universe conference (2002-2004), the Agile Development Conference (2003), the International Quality Week conference (1997-1999), and the ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (1993, 1994).

One of the authors of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.

Cohosted workshops on software understanding at OOPSLA in and .

Organized a series of workshops on software testing patterns.

Cofounder and moderater of the mailing list.

Taught courses on software testing or the pragmatics of software development for graduate students and advanced undergraduates at the University of Illinois (1992-1998). EDUCATION

MS Computer Science, University of Illinois, 1989

BS Math and Computer Science, University of Illinois, 1981

BA English Literature, University of Illinois, 1981

'', OOPSLA Onward!, 2004.

'', Better Software Magazine,April 2004.

'', Software Testing and Quality Engineering Magazine,September 2002.

'AManager's Guide to Evaluating Test Suites' (with and ), International QualityWeek, May 2000.

'The Tester'sTriad: Bug, Product, User', invited paper, Software Testing,Analysis, and Review (STAR), May 2000.

'Faults ofOmission', Software Testing and Quality Engineering Magazine,January 2000.

'',International Symposium and Exposition on Testing Computer Software,June 1999 (previously presented at STAR 95).

'',keynote, International Quality Week, May 1999.

'',invited paper, Software Testing, Analysis, and Review, October 1998.

'When Should a Test be Automated?',International Quality Week, May 1998.

','invited paper, Software Testing, Analysis, and Review (STAR), May 1997.

'' (with Steve Stukenborg), International Quality Week, May 1997.

TheCraft of Software Testing, Prentice Hall 1995.

'Three Ways to Improve Your Testing,' invited paper, PacificNorthwest Software Quality Conference, October 1992.

'The Weak Mutation Hypothesis,' Proceedings of the ACM SIGSOFTSymposium on Testing, Analysis, and Verification, October 1991.

'', Pacific Northwest SoftwareQuality Conference, October 1991.

'Two Experiments in Software Testing,' Technical ReportUIUCDCS-R-90-1644, University of Illinois, 1990.

'A Survey of Test Effectiveness and Cost Studies,' Technical ReportUIUCDCS-R-90-1652, University of Illinois, 1990.

'A Survey of Software Fault Surveys,' Technical ReportUIUCDCS-R-90-1651, University of Illinois, 1990.

'Lynx: Hypertext on-the-Cheap for Software Maintenance,' M.S.Thesis, University of Illinois, 1989.

'The VERUS Design Verification System,' in Proceedings of the 1983IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, April 1983.

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