Sayonara 2010 - Welcome 2011

2010-It’s been quite an eventful year, both personally and professionally. Year started with something quite probing i.e. testing a middleware application in a span of 5 days. I was asked to test the Service Layer part of the application and I am glad that I did it as I got to learn few more tools like SOAP UI for WSDL and RESTful web services testing. If 2009 was about learning RapidSQL then 2010 was about getting comfortable with DBArtisan. There has been some addition on how to use BPT or Business Process Testing using Quality Center and Quick Test Professional both from HP.

In last 4-5 months; I got to learn about iTKO LISA Test Automation tool which I found good for middleware and back-end test automation (or Automated Checks). It‘s not easy to use for sure, at first it looks like a configuration management tool and to make learning little difficult, a newer version of this tool does not provide updated version of help documents. I hope going into New Year; the tool owners will improve on help documentation because if they are looking to have a large user base they will have to help users and make them feel at ease with LISA.

Then there came Agile and for first 2 sprints I was kind of confused so I picked a book titled “Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams” by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory. It proved to be of immense value and helped me BIG time. So, now I have the experience in Agile environment (/methodology) as well. Few things I really liked about Agile are quick feedback and less documentation. In few weeks, I’ll put a separate post on my experience with Agile as a tester.

These are the few important things that I learned in 2010, more importantly I networked heavily and read a number of recommended books from James Marcus Bach. I hope to finish reading (& learning from) all of them by end of 2011.

There had been some disturbances as well on personal front but all is well that ends well. I am sure to start 2011 with a bang; a lot of things will change with the start of New Year on both of he ‘P’ fronts. I hope to network with lot more people in testing arena and share & learn with them. Ohh yes, I have few New Year resolutions also, I will blog more frequently then I have been doing in last 1.5 years. There are few more that I’ll not talk about.

Wishing you all, a very happy & prosperous 2011. This is Rahul Gupta signing off for 2010.

C Ya!!!

Will Moolya redefine meaning of "Value"?

A few days back, Pradeep Soundararajan officially launched Moolya Brainual Software Testing Services Private Limited on his famous blog. Moolya means Value. I was one of the few people who were aware of this development for at least 2 months. I got an opportunity to meet Pradeep at this year's GTAC in Hyderbad. So is it another software testing company that promises big....NO at least not to me and many others who have been following Pradeep's blog for over 2 years now. 

I am not an expert to talk much about business opportunities, market conditions and services offered etc. but I certainly know that there are so many money spinning machines in the world of software testing. You think of something related to software testing and few names will popup in your head, here is a simple exercise; Certifications in Software Testing, Easy to use Automation Tools, Quality / Standard Certifying boards (think of 2 names for each). See, you would rightly guess few names there. 

I have visited Moolya's site many a time since it's public appearance. Every time I visit it, something or other innovative (read different) approach becomes apparent, whether it be it's hiring process or the header of About Us page which boldly says "Curious to know about us?". 

I spent considerable time in thinking about this venture of Pradeep and Santhosh. It looks promising on many fronts because I feel a fresher will not spend too much time in mugging up some definitions, it will be like learning on the job and practicing that learning on Weekends; because I believe that people will not have managers who will ask them to go for some sort of certifications to prove their worth; because people will not spend hours in filling up excel sheets for some irrelevant metrics to prove test coverage ( or branch coverage and line coverage) rather they will win Clients' confidence by making them aware of current health of the project. I can go on and on for hours....but it's all not gonna be a bed of roses because Moolya promises to be a change agent and it will face some challenges from different quarters, I am expecting few anonymous bullies to comment on this post but that may not happen as BugMagnate is not a famous blog.

Pradeep has put a lot of emphasis on culture of the company and he said “They are the Microsoft & Apple of 1970's. They are the Google of the 1990's.” I don’t think any parallels should be drawn in terms of where it is starting because when any of the aforementioned companies started they were unrivalled in their market segment, the same cannot be said about Moolya. Moolya will need to collaborate, share, make it’s presence felt and above all It has to have a solid client list.

So what's gonna work in Moolya's favor at this point? Word of Mouth...yes and by means of this blog post I am starting in that direction. Let’s spread the word.

All the Best, Pradeep and Santhosh…I wish one day I’ll take pride in saying, “I know one of the founders of Moolya”. And I am sure; Moolya will prove Moolyavaan (of great value) to entire Software Testing industry and will redefine the meaning of "Value".