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O’Reilly’s Beautiful Testing book coming soon!

bnitz — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:05:32 +0000

Emily Chen and I coauthored a chapter in an O’Reilly book entitled “Beautiful Testing” which was edited by Adam Goucher and Tim Riley.

Successful software depends as much on scrupulous testing as it does on solid architecture or elegant code. Beautiful Testing offers 23 essays from 27 leading testers and developers that illustrate the qualities and techniques that make testing an art. Through personal anecdotes, you’ll learn how each of these professionals developed ideas of beauty in testing a wide range of products — valuable knowledge that you can apply to your own projects.

The bound version should be available in bookstores in the next few days. The electronic version is already available here:

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596159825

Malahide rail viaduct before and after photos

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:38:12 +0000

Here is a clearer before and after photo. Both were taken from exactly the same spot (with in a couple of feet), with exactly the same kid’s telescope/lens adapter.

Taken on 5 Oct, 2008

Taken on 24 August, 2009

Taken on 5 October 2008

Taken 24 Aug, 2009

Irish rail line collapses in Malahide’s broadmeadows estuary

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:40:11 +0000

A railway viaduct very near my home collapsed into the broadmeadows estuary. We’re very fortunate that the train which crossed only seconds before the collapse made it across safely. The underlying piers the viaduct is built upon dates back to the mid 19th century. Yesterdays tides were approximately 15 feet high, which is stronger than usual. High tide was at about 1 in the afternoon and lowest tide was shortly after the collapse. These photos show how it appeared before, in October 2008 and just after the incident on 21 August 2009. I wonder if there is a better way of monitoring the erosion under such structures. Underwater cameras? Laser interferometry?