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The Fun in Testing

I look at my daughter as she goes around testing waters every where. Given a pencil and told to not write on the walls, she tests us out. She spends a little time scribbling on paper and then, slowly, she starts scribbling on the wall. She runs a test on us. Are we watching? What repercussions will she have to bear? Given a new toy, she will play around with it for a little while before trying to take it apart. The curious mind of the toddler is fun to watch.

Quality Assurance is very much like that. I am reminded of an ad for the LYF phones on TV nowadays. They bounce a Table Tennis ball off the screen, the drop it down from a height and show that it still works. How fun is that? The child in us would love to try all these little antics with our phones or whatever other equipment that we may have. Drop a phone from a table top - sure! Drop the phone in a bucket full of water - definitely. Does it still work after that? Yes, then the test passes. Nope? Oh too bad - the guys will have to go fix it so that it does work after it gets a bath. As long as someone else is doing the fixing and bearing the costs of fixing as well, it is all good!

Getting a free hand to run any kind of test on a software is not easy. So if you are the kind of person that is clumsy with things and often breaks stuff, then maybe testing is the job for you. It is undoubtedly more fun when you are expected to test the unbreakable. Find any which way to break it - anything goes. Like a No-Holds-Barred, No-Disqualification, No-CountOuts match in WWE. Maybe it is easier to do that when one is not yet an adult. At least I have too many checks and balances in-built to go free-for-all. Many kids do not have these mental blocks, so they can go full throttle without a care in the world. Would be a worthwhile experiment to try some time. 
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