The soul of a tester

Hi.

I went through a small inner conflict. Am I a tester or do I wanna be a developer? I think that every tester who ever was a programmer does take on this question.

Do I program at home or do I commit myself to a life time of studying technology and understanding it but never actually using it since I ain't got the time to delve into something. Why not? Because you must go on with your studies as a tester and you must go on with your work. And if you are a tester from the soul you should practice your testing skills and not your programmer skills. And if you're an automation tester then you should practice your automation skills which does involve programming but not at application level.

And that brings me to today's topic. A tester's soul.

I could write about many things... Technology. Boundary Analysis. White Box testing. Black box testing. Performance, Syntax, Idiot proof, Exploratory, Semantic, Error Guessing, Algorithm testing and so much more. Automation, Server side scripting, web automation, sql injection proofing and so on and so fort.

None of these mean anything. It does not matter if you know these things, it does not matter if you can write a test within 5 minutes that tests a textbox for every value possible it does not mean ANYTHING IF... if you don't have a testers soul. A tester will do this with Passion! A tester will do this out of curiosity a tester will try to break the system in any way possible a tester will try to find loopholes a tester will try to find every bug in a the world. And tell you what? A tester is a tester even if he is NOT in work. A tester will test a TV in a market before he buys it. A tester will try to punch a melon to see if it breaks before he buys it. A tester will take careful decisions based on analysis the available data at hand. A tester will do his job and he will love it. Even if it is dull at some times. It does not matter. He likes it that way. It does not matter if from time to time there is nothing to do because the servers are not working. He would not mind the time out. Why? That's just another opportunity to broaden his skills. He reads books about testing, he reads blogs about testing he reads articles about testing. It's in his Soul in his Blood in his very existence. He will jump into new opportunities he will gladly learn the 123131345533^th programming language if the project demands it. He will be an expert on Network Security if the project demands it and hell he will even be a professor a doctor and a damn astronaut if that is what he needs to be.

A good tester's a very good tester's best abilities are not what he may already know about technology. Technology is not a constant variable. It's always changing always evolving. A good tester can ADAPT. A good tester LIKES to adapt. A good tester WANTS to adapt. A good tester has strong people skills. A good tester is a cheerful person with very good fantasy and ideas which pop out of his head every minute. A good tester is a guy who if he drops his phone has almost instantly written and performed a dozen test cases to see if his telephone is working. A good tester will NEVER assume. A good tester does NOT KNOW the word ASSUME. He hates the sentences:”Let's assume.” Let's not. Tell me how it looks like. Tell me how it works. Tell me it's bits and pieces tell me the nature of it's heart and i take it apart and put it back together and tell you what's wrong with it.

THAT is a Tester. A tester loves to test. A tester loves the challenge of a good application. A tester loves reading, writing, learning about technology, testing processes, the world in it self. A tester wants to be ALL KNOWING. A tester can never have enough knowledge in his brain. A tester NEVER does something SINGLE. He always does multiple things at once. Never does focus on something he focuses on many things WITHOUT loosing detail on one thing.

So... What is a tester's soul? A tester's soul is his life. A tester is the embodiment of a protecting angel who tries his best to surface all the evil in the world and all the bugs in software development. A tester is a life commitment. And i like being a tester. I love being a tester. There is nothing better then to be a professional senior software quality assurance engineer. Amen.