tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post4724386536332166052..comments2023-09-01T13:36:59.610+05:30Comments on Tester Tested !: Ants solve problems that testers struggle to!Pradeep Soundararajanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-74536676385571783102008-05-15T14:49:00.000+05:302008-05-15T14:49:00.000+05:30@Markus,It is so inspiring to read your comment. A...@Markus,<BR/><BR/>It is so inspiring to read your comment. A wonderful demonstration of unlearning and learning I have witnessed.<BR/><BR/>Thank you Markus, for your experiments, passion, interest and the time you took to comment and e-mail!Pradeep Soundararajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-70060057309712949082008-05-15T12:26:00.000+05:302008-05-15T12:26:00.000+05:30It really took some time :)As an addition I will p...It really took some time :)<BR/><BR/>As an addition I will post the email I sent to Pradeep yesterday. He encouraged me to also present it here.<BR/><BR/>-----<BR/><BR/>Hi Pradeep,<BR/>as you might remember a few months ago we had some discussion about your "testing ants" experiment which I didn't think was an appropriate comparisson to the work of testers.<BR/><BR/>Now I must say the approach itself works.<BR/><BR/>I'm almost through David Allen's "Getting things done" and want to get started on its implementation. The main problem I see is "How can I implement all this stuff now that I'm abroad with only a rough timeline on when I'll be back in Germany? Setting up a big filing system is no option, creating baskets at the appartment and at work either, and without that<BR/>the rest doesn't make sense. 'Tickler' file, no chance."<BR/><BR/>But then I realised that I had already started taking the first, and most easy to use advise: Clear the email inbox. I had taken the first thing I saw that I could manage and got it done. Yesterday evening I did another step which could be done without creating piles of paper: I collected my "mental open loops".<BR/><BR/>If you haven't done already you might want to look at David's book, since it is about picking the right thing todo at the right time and being confident with the decision made.<BR/><BR/>-----Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-29976959825581196542008-02-21T14:08:00.000+05:302008-02-21T14:08:00.000+05:30@Anonymous,Yes, Markus did have some challenge und...@Anonymous,<BR/><BR/>Yes, Markus did have some challenge understanding it but the good thing about the blog is the comment section that helped him understand, a little later.<BR/><BR/>All fine.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Thanks for spending your time.Pradeep Soundararajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-19325623204593756882008-02-21T13:35:00.000+05:302008-02-21T13:35:00.000+05:30Hi Marcus, don't focus on the Ants, but the meanin...Hi Marcus, don't focus on the Ants, but the meaning that the author try to bring. your point of view is different, i guess you have wrong focus, you shoudl focus on the real problem in your tests.<BR/>Cheers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-7905413580219207132008-01-16T19:22:00.000+05:302008-01-16T19:22:00.000+05:30You helped me in understanding your point, and I'm...You helped me in understanding your point, and I'm with you to some extent.<BR/><BR/>Nevertheless, I don't think human beings can make a decision by guts once they realize the complexity of a system - which will be within seconds or minutes if we talk about highly skilled personel.<BR/><BR/>On the other side you have ants acting by instinct leaving feelings and thinking, i.e. <I><B>realizing</B></I> complexity aside.<BR/><BR/>Sometimes we really should "just do it" (thank you Nike) but acting against a well thought ought strategy of reducing risk is hard because you can't switch of thinking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-8618361240448513502008-01-16T00:01:00.000+05:302008-01-16T00:01:00.000+05:30@Markus,Thanks for considering to post the comment...@Markus,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for considering to post the comment again.<BR/><BR/>This post is not about ants that develop new skills to solve their problems BUT is about ants who do not spend time bothering in what form the food is and will they be able to eat it or not - who finally break down the food or find a quick work around as compared to human testers who complain about the form or complexity of the product.<BR/><BR/>I hope I have helped you get it right now?Pradeep Soundararajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-9456362879654912222008-01-15T23:57:00.000+05:302008-01-15T23:57:00.000+05:30OK, since my original reply seems to have been los...OK, since my original reply seems to have been lost in depths of blogspot,<BR/>here comes a short resume of my thoughts.<BR/><BR/>In my first comment I wrote "They also succeeded in carrying away the candy, BUT they were not able to break the problem down into smaller parts, so it's rather a workaround than an actual solution."<BR/><BR/>By now I think I left out some point from my biology lessons :)<BR/><BR/>What if the ants go by instinct. They have been developing for millions of years and probably<BR/>there's just three solutions for them about "how to handle food".<BR/><BR/>if (it is food)<BR/>{<BR/>__if (we can take away the pieces)<BR/>__{<BR/>____everyone grab a piece and off you go<BR/>__}<BR/>__else if (we can break it up)<BR/>__{<BR/>____break it up;<BR/>____everyone grab a piece and off you go<BR/>__}<BR/>__else if (we can take it away as a whole)<BR/>__{<BR/>____gather as many ressources as necessary;<BR/>____let's get it to the hive;<BR/>__}<BR/>}<BR/><BR/>They don't develop new skills in the moment they get this task, they just see food<BR/>and use their problem solving strategy which they have developed during their evolution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-86639486521963318262007-12-12T23:37:00.000+05:302007-12-12T23:37:00.000+05:30@Markus,Thanks for coming back. I think I got a li...@Markus,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for coming back. I think I got a little of what you wanted to mean but I admit that I don't feel I understood it to the extent I want to understand things.<BR/><BR/>You might skilled enough but you might not be aware of it.Pradeep Soundararajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-5855961339484090522007-12-12T17:26:00.000+05:302007-12-12T17:26:00.000+05:30Well part is jokingly part is serious. As you didn...Well part is jokingly part is serious. As you didn't take the job of testing the 'too complex system' I don't take the job of trying to explain the 'too complex behaviour of ants' because I _think_/_believe_ that I'm not skilled enough.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-59525948432885314242007-12-11T22:27:00.000+05:302007-12-11T22:27:00.000+05:30@Markus,This is some pretty nice testing ;) but I ...@Markus,<BR/><BR/><I>This is some pretty nice testing ;) but I think your conclusions might not be adequate when it comes to comparing ants and human testers.</I><BR/><BR/>I never thought I was concluding on anything in this post and hence you might want to say, "The message that occurs to me when reading this post is..."<BR/><BR/>I have seen a movie with a friend of mine and at the end we had different learnings from it, so the same story might be interpreted many ways as many people read it.<BR/><BR/><I>They also succeeded in carrying away the candy, BUT they were not able to break the problem down into smaller parts, so it's rather a workaround than an actual solution.</I><BR/><BR/>The mission for them is to get the food into their nest, and in my opinion they achieved it.<BR/><BR/>Hitting a ball to the audience seated on the right side might not score a run for a person playing baseball but certainly is a gather of 6 more runs to someone playing a cricket.<BR/><BR/>So if I do the same thing for different mission, I wouldn't achieve the same result.<BR/><BR/>As testers, we have a mission for the next hour, for the next half of the day and for the next month. Many testers who complain complexity might not understand what their mission is for the next hour and might complain about the complexity of achieving a result at end of the month. <BR/><BR/>It certainly looks complex for a tester who fails to look at the hourly mission and just looks at the mission that he/she might want to achieve at the end of the month. Also what those testers fail to realize is the fact that the hourly mission helps in progressing towards the monthly mission.<BR/><BR/><BR/>However, I appreciate you for bringing a new perspective to this post that might also help more readers who might be dropping by this post since your comment and mine is published.<BR/><BR/><I>Feelings and the process of thought are also part of turning down jobs, which I think is something ants are not "hampered" by but I'm not too much into biology and don't want to make a fool of myself (<- see what happened?!).</I><BR/><BR/>I am sure there is a joke hidden above but I need your help in breaking it down to appreciate it better. If there is no joke there, excuse me, you still might want to help me understand it.Pradeep Soundararajanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17849721523107325938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21132099.post-73823287989980022412007-12-11T21:28:00.000+05:302007-12-11T21:28:00.000+05:30This is some pretty nice testing ;) but I think yo...This is some pretty nice testing ;) but I think your conclusions might not be adequate when it comes to comparing ants and human testers.<BR/>They succeeded in carrrying away the sugar, which might be compared to a tester doing tests on small pieces of a large software. No problem.<BR/><BR/>They succeeded in carrying away the cake, by braking it up into pieces and then carry out the same task as before.<BR/><BR/>They also succeeded in carrying away the candy, BUT they were not able to break the problem down into smaller parts, so it's rather a workaround than an actual solution.<BR/><BR/>As a tester I'm probably not able to break down the system to get it being more testable, but I'll have to go to a developer an ask for the product to be made more testable. As such I'm also making a workaround.<BR/><BR/>Feelings and the process of thought are also part of turning down jobs, which I think is something ants are not "hampered" by but I'm not too much into biology and don't want to make a fool of myself (<- see what happened?!).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com