Two Testing Giants Part Ways

Wow. What can I say? Scott Barber started a firestorm. Two great minds, James Back and Cem Kaner, in the testing community are parting ways on an idea, context-driven testing (CDT), which they helped create and foster. The reaction on each other’s blog has been like two parents getting divorced with testers in the field expressing disbelief, pain, and sadness.

Part of what is driving this is a changing viewpoint for Cem. Not uncommon since 2 other founding members have already broken off with CDT. To compound things between Cem and James, there is personal animosity between them. While I will say that I have a great deal of respect for James and Cem and they both have great ideas; I, for one, do not really care about them parting ways. And I do not think you care about their parting ways either; because CDT principles are an undeniable truth, not dependent on any one person.

I do agree with Cem’s general statement that there is more than one CDT school – more than one camp each with their own values and ontology (to quote James). The problem is, I disagree with using the word “school”. While it may be semantics, my issue is that school conjures up images of an institution with a predefined curriculum of which you cannot graduate unless you pass the courses. Sounds like certification, with which I disagree. CDT is a paradigm. I don’t like the implied argument, raised by James, that the ability to NOT follow something makes it an approach versus a school; because the implication is, that you must always follow something and that something that must be your identity. This makes CDT sounds like dogma and religion. For the sake of this blog post, I will still reference “schools” as schools to maintain some discussion continuity.

To me, CDT is more fundamental to the testing community than I have found anyone to say. My belief is based on the premise CDT is not about a new way doing things so much as it is an acknowledgement of reality. The CDT principles are more akin to truths than principles. Even if you do not positively use the principles to gain synergies, it does not negate the principles; it does not render them false. CDT is ingrained in the fabric of testing, regardless of which “school” a tester is following. The principles are an acknowledgement of “what is” not of “what can be”. To see what I mean, just paraphrase a few enlightened guys, “I hold these truths to be self-evident…”  Even if someone followed the “Factory School” of testing, the CDT principles still hold true. For example, Factory testers believe testing measures progress. While that is an information point, it does not negate CDT principles such as projects unfold in unpredictable ways or that people are still the most important asset. The principles of CDT can be found in these realities. Therefore, CDT fundamentally permeates all “schools” of testing. Because of these reasons, I do not see any significance in this parting of ways. 


Ultimately, there is an underlying “thing” that needs to be acknowledged, and that is: the purpose of software testing and consequently, software testers. Software testing’s purpose is to identify data, consolidate it into useful information, and provide it to stakeholders so that informed decisions can be made. That purpose exists regardless of a “school”. When thinking about it, I see the “schools” are really aligned to tools and types of information for specific decisions. The schools are not aligned to the real purpose of testing. I believe this is one of the reasons there are so many issues with every “school’s” beliefs and approaches. 

• Our job, as testers, is to extract data, synthesize it into information so that someone, a stakeholder, can make a decision. To do this we need tools. Those tools depend on the several factors: 
• I can only use tools I recognize – it is difficult to use something as a tool if you cannot see it in front of you Everyone has different tools – our tools are experience and knowledge based, accelerated - at times - but never replaced by technology 
•  Not every tool we know of is at our disposal – there may be great tools out there, ones we know about, but we simply might not be able to afford or capable of easily learning them 
• Every tool has a function – no matter the tool, it has a purpose, a way of being used, and expectation of what using it will do 
• Every tool can be used for any job, with varying degrees of success – you can use a butter knife as a regular screwdriver - sometimes 
• Using tools, in both traditional and non-traditional ways, will create new tools for us – it is about learning. With all tools being knowledge based, any learning leads to new tools 

Our challenge is to realize, as testers, our job is to extract data about a creative process in order to synthesize useful, information in a way so that stakeholders can make informed decisions; to use the tools we have available to do the best job we can. By the way, that translation of data to useful information is and should be influenced by the creative process (development process), our tools, knowledge, experience, and our understandings. We are researchers, inspectors, philosophers, teachers, learners, synthesizers, but most of all, we are information brokers.