Pro-testing Against Bad Software Quality

Because You’re Worth It…

This post should probably have been named as "Brothers in Arms, Part 3" as it was inspired by the blog post Two "Scoops" of "Bugs" by James Bach but I felt like doing things a little differently this time. Just to keep things fresh. If that's even a valid expression as most of this post is about something I wrote back in 2001 (I seem to have been rather productive back then).

As comments to what James Bach wrote, an obvious problem with the loose use of language is the communication gaps that it opens up between individuals. Simply put: more room for interpretation, higher chance of misunderstandings (pretty obvious, eh). Then again, as he mentioned in his post, it also makes communication smoother when you don't drill down to exact specifics of every little nuance and detail right away as going too deep too fast could lead to losing the big picture which would not be very likely to be a good thing. Balancing these two (high-level communication versus gory, but necessary, details) is an art form on its own, imo - a tester needs to speak manager in addition to tester, with maybe a little added marketing accent, to get things straight.

Anyway, a little something from the past:

There can be no single logical mappings between words and concepts - not even within a single language - simply because words are nothing more than words; generally-agreed symbols one after another - creating a generally-agreed "meaningful" combination. In actuality, words are just empty placeholders or pointers, if you want to put it that way - without any intrinsic or implicit content or value. It is us humans, as unique individuals, who fill those placeholders/pointers with subjective meanings that are unique to each and everyone and are entirely based on emotions.

Since there are and can never be two individuals exactly alike, there is no way a single word could have the exact same content for any two persons, unless explicitly agreed on, between those individuals. Thus, dictionary words aren't "true" or "right", they are just meanings intersubjectively agreed on by a group of people. Then again, the purpose of a dictionary is not to enforce meanings to words but, to explain - reflect, if you want - generally agreed meanings of those words at the time.

Media sells products with advertisements filled with images "giving meaning" to those empty words (words criticized by Richard Rorty) as if those words in themselves meant something and, you had to buy the product in order to become what the images are trying to associate you with. "Buy product X and you will become beautiful. Naturally, because you're worth it". See how it goes? Is it really me who is worth the product? Is it really owning the product that makes me worth something? At least, that is what many advertisements want to imply. What these advertisements also imply (but leave unsaid) is the image of what happens if you don't buy the product advertised; from that viewpoint the advertisement reads: Not buying this product makes you less worthy, less beautiful and less desirable.

No wonder people are confused and anxious.

Come to think of it, the Most Questionable Title for a Profession that I can think of would go somewhere along the lines of: Marketing Psychologist. O' fear ye mortal ones.

While, again, this is not directly testing-related, it's very strongly people-related, which does make it relevant. The single biggest reason for failed software projects in my experience is the lack of proper communication. One way or another. Which makes things interesting as one of my goals in testing is to try and help close down those communication gaps by pointing them out to people. Is that quality assistance?