work: Test metaphors

[jenk]

I ran across this at Testing Reflections:

Lesson 1: Know your enemy

• Lack of Quality is not your enemy, it’s [the] developers enemy. Your enemy is absence of evidence of it.

Lesson 2: Know your equipment and how to use it

• Armour: standards, guidelines (universal defence against any attacks)
• Shield: test [plans], test cases (when used properly may block some attacks by “the enemy” – do you remember who is an enemy?)
• Sword: testing - test execution (use to attack the enemy)

Lesson 3: Choose appropriate equipment

• Good armour reduces movement.
• Shield decreases offence.
• A single soldier may use long sword (knight) or two swords (samurai)…
• An army [can] use good armour, big shields, normal swords

A lot of this makes sense. Lesson 1: We are looking for facts. Lesson 3 is about tradeoffs...and how test plans are like battle plans - they don't survive initial contact unscathed!

Other thoughts?