From: jrb3@...
Date: 2004-02-23T03:31:17+09:00
Subject: OT: XP tester (was Re: how to raise warning?)

Guten tag, Josef Schugt (und freunde)!

(Goodness, has it been that long since my high-school German classes? :-)

> One is used to read acronyms in all uppercase.

    True, but one must also fit into Ruby idiom.  I expect an object's
methods to start lowercase, and all-uppercase symbols to represent
some sort of constant.  'def FYI( *message ) ... ; FYI "yada yada"'
just grates.

    Overall, the "warn!" idea seems better for including file/line
information.  I might go back to some form where some kind of level is
one of the arguments (eg, ::WARN, ::ERROR, ::FATAL, ::DEBUG, ...), but
I've forgotten or misused (or abused :-) this often enough, that I
prefer to have the method name cite the level of severity.  I use so
few as it is ....


>>         lead XP tester, Eidogen Inc.
>                ^^^^^^^^^
>
> A somewhat off-topic and perhaps stupic question:
>
> I am a bit confused about the term 'XP tester'. If 'XP' stands for
> 'eXtreme Programming' the word 'XP tester' rather raises the picture
> of a computer that permanently runs test cases. Does the term mean
> that you supervise the creation of test cases?

    Yes.  In Extreme Programming parlance, I'm part of the 'Customer
team'.  I help automate as much of the Customer ("acceptance") tests
as we can.  We do have a machine dedicated to continually building our
product, which runs all the unit-tests and a few acceptance tests on
each source-code check-in.  Two other machines run a large
acceptance-test suite daily (combined run time around 19 hours).  The
team's large enough that it takes a full-time person for this: 
actually, it's six developers and two testers so far, and it really
should become closer to 5:3 or 4:4 soon ....

    Because I started my career as a releaser, buildmaster, and toolsmith,
I tend to oversee the build machine too.  Some days it feels like I'm
not doing much of anything:  nothing regressed during the past 24
hours, nothing broke down and needs fixing, and the team just keeps
ticking along steadily adding functionality.  That's the norm around
here.  I will *not* trade that for any other software job I've worked
at -- we're racheting forward, and everyone has confidence that
they're receiving solid software with the most valuable pieces in
place and usable.  Besides, we get home on time, with enough left of
the day for our families, and get in each morning ready to give the
team another good day of work.

        Joseph Beckenbach
        lead XP tester, Eidogen Inc.