Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Is Testing Dead? Dunno, but the Context-Driven School Is

Well, I'm sure this is a bit of a shocker for many of you, but the following quote comes from the "about page" of context-driven-testing.com hosted by Cem Kaner:

"...However, over the past 11 years, the founders have gone our separate ways. We have developed distinctly different visions. If there ever was one context-driven school, there is not one now..."
This is Part I of a series of entries on this topic. Links to subsequent parts will be added to the bottom of this entry as they are posted.


Of course, this doesn't  negate or erase the Context-Driven Principles, and Cem has committed to keeping the original content on landing page of the revised site:
"...When you land on this site, you see the context-driven-testing.com landing page (the Principles) as it was when we originally published it. I’ll keep it that way (with the same set of Principles), because several people have found it useful..."
To my way of thinking, the *most* important point made by Cem on the About Page is the following:
..."This notion of evolution comes with a built-in assumption: If my thinking will evolve to something else in the future, it must be wrong today. Progress on my path to better understanding and practice of testing (and of anything else that I’m serious about) includes discovering what needs to be changed in my thinking, and changing it.
This is an important aspect of science. We don’t run experiments to confirm what we already know. We run experiments to prove that what we think we already know is wrong. And to help us develop something better..."
This is the point I'd like folks to focus on.