The Hexawise Software Testing blog carnival focuses on sharing interesting and useful blogposts related to software testing.

• The Zen of Application Test Suites by Curtis “Ovid” Poe – “This document is about testing applications — it’s not about how to write tests. Application test suites require a different, more disciplined approach than library test suites. I describe common misfeatures experienced in large application test suites and follow with recommendations on best practices.”

• The Software Tester’s Easter Egg Hunt by Ben Austin – “The testing industry will benefit greatly if more people follow Holland’s example and prioritize critical thinking over the ability to write test scripts. That said, it is equally important to recognize that scripting tools, when used in the situations they’re intended for, can be great time-savers that can enable more thoughtful, context-driven exploratory testing.

• “Grapefruit Juice Bugs” – A New Term for a Surprisingly Common Type of Surprising Bugs by Justin Hunter – “Like grapefruit juice’s impact on prescription drugs, software testing involves critical interactions between different parts of the system. And risks exist when these different parts interact with one another.”

• Testing at Airbnb by Lou Kosak – “Building good habits around testing is hard, especially at an established company. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned this year is that as long as you have a team that’s open to the idea, it’s always possible to start testing (even if you’ve got a six year old monolithic Rails app to contend with). Once you have a decent test suite in place, you can actually start refactoring your legacy code, and from there anything is possible. The trick is just to get started.”

• Disruptive Testing – James Bach Interviewed by Rodney Urquhart – “the future I am helping to build is about systematically training up skilled testers, some of whom but not all with coding skills, so that a small number of testers can do– or coordinate to be done– all the testing that a large project might need. A good future for testing would be one with a lot fewer “testers” but each one of those testers being passionate about his craft.”

• The role of a Test Manager in agile by Katrina Clokie – “In a cross-skilled team, the agile tester must ensure that the quality of testing is good regardless of who in the team is completing it. The tester becomes the spokesperson for collaborative testing practices, and provides coaching via peer reviews or workshops to those without a testing background.”

• Speaking to Your Business Using Measurements by Justin Rohrman – “In my experience, no one measure did a great job of telling the story about my software ecosystem. I’ve been deceived by groups of measures, too, because I misunderstood their weaknesses. If we are so easily deceived by measurements, imagine what happens when we send them off to others who need quick, high-level information.”

• Shine a light by Rob Lambert – “Tours, personas and a variety of other test ideas give you a way of re-shining your light. Use these ideas to see the product in different ways, but never forget that it’s often time that is against you. And time is one of the hardest commodities to argue for during your testing phase.”

• Using mind-mapping software as a visual test management tool by Aaron Hodder – “I like to employ a style of software testing that emphasises the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimise the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project. When performed by a skilled tester, this approach yields valuable and consistent results.”

• Helpful Tips for Hiring Better Testers by Isaac Howard – “I looked at the good testers around me and tried to identify the “whys” of their success. All of them were driven to learn and capable of adapting to change. If they didn’t know a tool or a tech, they learned it. Because under the hood, testing is learning and relearning software everyday. The following are seven changes I made to my interviewing process.”