Choosing the fast route through a proven process means omitting or shortchanging some productive activities, and the piper will be paid-if not now, then later.

Some quite humorous statements and aphorisms about programming and testing software. You've probably seen or heard a number of them, but they're still funny.

Use cases are wonderful but confusing. People, when asked to write them, do not know what to include or how to structure them. There is no published theory for them. This paper introduces a theory based on a small model of communication, distinguishing "goals" as a key element of use cases. The result is an easily used, scaleable, recursive model that provides benefits outside requirements gathering: goals and goal failures can be explicitly discussed and tracked; the goals structure is useful for project management, project tracking, staffing, and business process reengineering. The model and techniques described here have been applied and evaluated on a relatively large (50 work-year, 200 use-case) project.

Error messages, if they're posted at all, should convey helpful information and advice--not only for the user, but also for tech support and maintenance programmers. Here are a few things to think about when coding your error-handling routines and designing your error messages. [Disclosure: A fellow that I used to work with wrote this article.]

On the surface, the ingredients for success were there: an enthusiastic and capable team, a competent manager and proper funding. So why was the project a disaster?

HOW DO YOU QUANTIFY quality? It's something PacifiCorp's 300 IT employees wrestle with daily, as they are beholden to specific service-level benchmarks and regularly comparing themselves to outsourcing options.

Site with a wide array of information and case studies on various topics in software testing and quality assurance.

We are often approached by clients who are very interested in Load, Stress, Performance and/or Scalability testing services for their Client/Server products. They want to know (or have been prompted by their customers or someone in their Marketing department who wants to know) how their application performs under load or stress conditions, and how scalable it is in an enterprise environment. The need for this information is very real and it seems like a very easy, straightforward question to answer. However, it quite often turns out to be a complicated process to provide these essential answers on Client/Server products. This is largely due to the complexity of the products themselves and the computing environments in which they operate. This is especially true of products that are designed as enterprise-wide solutions, providing a rich and diverse set of features and functionality to address a variety of needs in a single software solution.

On average, programmers create six to eight defects in every 100 lines of code (LOC) [1]. They create 12 to 20 defects per 100 LOC if the code is not structured and is poorly documented. These defect rates improve to two to three defects per 100 LOC if the code is structured and documented. However, the rates only improve to one to 1.5 defects per 100 LOC for subsystems, programs, or modules after typical unit testing. We certainly need techniques to improve defect detection during coding and unit testing.

A successful automated software quality process must occur throughout the development life cycle. True or false: Automated testing is the only way to ensure the quality of an application. The answer depends on whom you ask and the depth of his or her experience. Software developers are told over and over that testing is the last chance to "get it right" prior to deployment.

IT out-sourcing company with articles related to software testing.

Developers and testers often do not work effectively together. Either the developers can change, we can change, or both. I've never had much luck directly changing other people's behavior. I have had luck changing my own behavior to indirectly elicit improvements in the way developers act. And those changes feed back to me, producing a virtuous cycle in our relationship. This paper is about my approach to working effectively with developers.

Very comprehensive tutorial on SQL and Oracle development (PL/SQL). Tutorial is available in Postscript and PDF format.

Introduction to TCP/IP and its implementation in Windows NT. [Article is obviously oriented toward Microsoft products, but it gives a very good top-level view of how TCP/IP works.]

From the vacuum tube to the antitrust trial, here's one take on the events of the century.

SO YOU START A typical workday and wade through 75 to 100 e-mail messages. Or perhaps more. Then you move on to voice mail, which is limited, thankfully, to accepting only 15 messages since you last checked it. Afterward, it's time to check a handful of Web sites and repeat this process several times a day. Mail and other paper-based notices also need your daily review. Meanwhile, your pager, personal digital assistant, and cell phone keep constituents in constant contact with you, and you with them. At some point, it can all seem like too much to handle.

Searchable on-line glossary of telecom terms. Very comprehensive with detailed descriptions and explanations.

THE RACE to deliver broadband services directly into businesses and homes will heat up this summer when a new nationwide network created in secret by an alliance of utility companies and computer industry giants will offer voice, data, and television services.

PC Magazine free utility that runs in the background and saves a list of text items (Sorry, graphics are not supported!) that get placed on the Clipboard. ClipTrak can then be activated (from a system tray icon) allowing you to select text that was previously on the Clipboard to paste into your current document. You can also build a list of frequently used text which can then be selected for pasting.

Update (version 2.0 -- still in beta) of a classic utility that will build a tree of all external modules required for an executable or DLL file. In addition, it shows which functions are imported from the dependent module, as well as which specific copy of the file on your hard drive is actually referenced. It's very useful when you're trying to track down a problem related to shared application files.

Very fast text-search and replace utility. One of the nicest features is that it displays MS Word documents in their native format including highlighting of the target text. Clicking on found item displays the file in native format within the viewer. This utility supports "regular expressions" for grep gurus.

Normally when you start Windows Explorer, it expands the folders on the root of the C: Drive. If you want it to start without expanding any drives, use the following command line (or, better yet, create a shortcut with this command line):