DevelopsenseLogo

Bugs

Oracle Heuristic: Consistency Within the Product

Today brings an example of applying of the *consistency within the product* oracle heuristic. (You can read more about that here and here https://www.developsense.com/blog/2012/07/few-hiccupps/) For reasons known only to the gods, when I visit AirBnB today, it insists on quoting all prices in Chilean pesos (CLP). At today’s rates, the Chilean peso is roughly 600 to the Canadian dollar, so a property that might cost CAD200 per night displays as … Read more

On the Normalization of Deviance

Last night, my wife was out on an errand in our car. She parked it, entered the store, and came out again. She tried to start the car. It wouldn’t start. She called home to consult with me. We tried a couple of things over the phone. We considered a couple of possible problems. From what I could tell, the starter motor wasn’t engaging. Not exactly a surprise, because I … Read more

Just Another Day at the Computer (3)

An online chat with a coaching student. I want to set up a Zoom meeting with her tomorrow. At some point during the last couple of days, there was a new version of the Zoom plugin for Outlook. Maybe there was a new version of Outlook, too; I’m not sure. But in any case…

Just Another Day at the Computer (2)

On my iPad, I’m reading a discussion on LinkedIn. A reply piques my interest, and I want to alert a colleague to it. I tap on the dots in the upper right. The options offered are are “Message (the author of the reply)”, “Share via…”, and “Report”. I tap on “Share via…” Nothing happens. I move to my computer, and go to the same reply. The three dots in the … Read more

Just Another Day at the Computer

I sit down with a coffee, retrieve my mail, and open it up. I’ve received a spammy kind of message. It provides a link to unsubscribe. The link returns {“code”:1020,”message”:”fail”}. I’ve received another spammy kind of message, this time from Yellow Pages (yp.ca). In the text, it is addressed to “[{Recipient.FirstName}]”. The message asks “How do you show up online?” Better than YellowPages shows up in my inbox, I hope. … Read more

Experience Report: Katalon Studio

Warning: this is another long post. But hey, it’s worth it, right? Introduction This is an experience report of attempting to perform a session of sympathetic survey and sanity testing on a “test automation” tool. The work was performed in September 2021, with follow-up work November 3-4, 2021. Last time, the application under test was mabl. This time, the application is Katalon Studio. My self-assigned charter was to explore and … Read more

Bug of the Day: AI Sees Bits, Not Things

An article that I was reading this morning was accompanied by a stock photo with an intriguing building in the background. I wanted to know where the building was, and what it was. I thought that maybe Chrome’s “Search Google for image” feature could help to locate an instance of the photo where the building was identified. That didn’t happen, but I got something else instead. Google Images provided me … Read more

Lessons Learned from a Little Bug

Almost 10 years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts on project estimation and black swans. And, almost 10 years after that, Chris NeJame reported an observation about the following passage towards the end of Part 4 of the series: As Jerry (Weinberg) has frequently pointed out, plenty of organizations fall victim to back luck, but much of the time, it’s not the bad luck that does them in; … Read more

Testers Don’t Prevent Problems

Testers don’t prevent errors, and errors aren’t necessarily waste. Testing, in and of itself, does not prevent bugs. Platform testing that reveals a compatibility bug provides a developer with information. That information prompts him to correct an error in the product, which prevents that already-existing error from reaching and bugging a customer. Stress testing that reveals a bug in a function provides a developer with information. That information helps her … Read more