Testing Hotlist Update

Cem Kaner's Recent Writing

If you are like me, you’re always eager to read Cem Kaner's writing. Lately, he's been publishing in journals that you may have missed, so here are some links.

• On teaching software testing online, in the December 2007 edition of the journal of the Association for Software Testing.
• On certification and the testing job market, in the June 2007 edition of the journal of the AST.
• On the problems with testers acting as user advocates, in the April 2007 edition of the journal of the Toronto Association of Systems & Software Quality.

These are all solid publications with great articles by many other authors as well. All free!

Publishing Ruby Code

Sometimes I publish Ruby code in this blog. I find that syntax highlighting makes the code much more readable. This post describes the tools I use to make this happen. This approach is based on one by Jim Morris.

This is the main script that converts ruby code to HTML with syntax highlighting:

require 'rio'
require 'rubygems'
require 'syntax/convertors/html'

code = File.read(ARGV[0])

convertor = Syntax::Convertors::HTML.for_syntax "ruby"
@code_html = convertor.convert( code )

puts @code_html

fn = "#{File.basename(ARGV[0], File.extname(ARGV[0]))}.html"
rio(fn) << @code_html

To get this to work for your blog, you will have to do the following:

1. Store the above script as code2html.rb.
2. Install the 'syntax' and 'rio' gems.

   > gem install syntax
   > gem install rio

3. Execute the script as follows:

   > code2html.rb your-code.rb

   This will create your-code.html, which is your code formatted for your blog.
4. Add Jim’s CSS to your blog. 
5. Paste the formatted HTML into your post.

Why Write?

Jerry Weinberg says:

One way for smart people to be happy is to express themselves, to put out in the world the vast melange of thoughts and feelings whirling in their heads.

Next AWTA is postponed

I've talked to many about hosting the AWTA workshop again this January, but I've decided not to go forward with it, not now. I am just too busy. I am, however, talking to a couple of other AWTA regulars — Carl Erickson and Andy Tinkham — about hosting an AWTA workshop in Minneapolis later this spring. The topic will be Testing with Ruby and this will be the first time AWTA has been held outside of Austin. We'll let you know more as we have more details.

I'm letting Carl and Andy take the lead for the next AWTA. That means they get to pick the location, which is why it will be in Minneapolis. Andy lives there, and Carl lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan — which is closer to Minneapolis than it is to Austin. One of the reasons I was happy to have them take the lead is to encourage me to write up the policies and protocols that I have used to organize the workshops in the past. I've been collecting notes for a while. I enjoy small conferences and, like Brian Marick, would like to see more of them. There are a number of different formats that small workshops and conferences can use. AWTA is based on the LAWST model and has evolved over the years to incorporate elements from Open Space as well.

I'll write more about how we’ve organized and hosted the AWTA workshops. If you have specific questions about the format, please post them in comments, and I'll answer them in future posts.