We have winter weather going on, and VDOT has been on top of it and we have had sand/salt/plow trucks going by repeatedly since 5AM. This is fantastic for keeping on top of the roads, however it is very incompatible with sleeping.

So, rather than trying to get an hour and a half of crappy sleep, I am up with a very large coffee.

Now, the question is – will I jump on my work laptop at 7 when the morning build is done and get a real jump on the day, or will I putz around online until my usual ~8:30 start time?

Speaking of work – that feature that I have been testing, and testing, and…testing some more? IT’S ALMOST DONE! LIKE REALLY JUST ABOUT DONE!

I’ve found at least 15 defects so far I think? The last run I did yesterday – ALL FIXED! I did find one more new one yesterday (and it kinda pisses me off, because it should have been caught early on by one of the other testers as it was specific to what they were testing, but whatever) but I’m really close to being able to put this behind me. (I really enjoy my work. I am sick of looking at this report.)

The thing with testing a feature vs. a defect is with a defect, you know exactly what you’re looking for. New feature – it’s kind of a shitty “Where’s Waldo” game, because while you know what the feature should do, and you have some idea of what could go wrong – you don’t really know all the things that could be buggy with it. So you’re kinda just looking for things out of place. And then when something doesn’t look right, you have to stop and investigate – is it bad source data, an actual defect, or do I just not actually know WTF the feature is supposed to do?

So, it can be very slow going, and this one especially so, as it’s a report with a ton of moving parts and so many potential scenarios to test – and everything can look great for scenarios 1-4 and then it all goes to shit in scenario 5 – and once it’s fixed, you need to do 1-4 again to make sure the fix didn’t break anything else. All while still keeping an eye out for anything else that doesn’t look right.

The initial time estimate on this was 48 hours for my testing. I’m approaching 200 hours. The good news is that no one has bitched about how long it has taken – because I keep finding shit wrong. Slow and steady finds all the bugs, or something like that.

Well, it’s 7AM, I’m on my second cup of cold brew and well, might as well go work.

Have a safe and warm day.