Today I have been thinking about why I prefer the phrase “good practices” over “best practices” in test design. My preference is so tenacious that I exchange the word “best” for “good” when the topic comes up, as if I’m trying to change people’s minds in a subliminal way. But why?

Sometimes, you can test things on a webpage by injecting JavaScript. It’s fairly simple, fairly powerful, but not without its gotchas. So what can you do and how? Here’s a trivial example:

It’s frustrating to go from 0 to implementing automation in testing at any scale. For some, this is down to a lack of experience with programming or scripting languages, for others it’s the pressure to get some testing work done and move on to the next priority. It could even be both. In any case, the effect of neglecting automation in software delivery is well-documented: increased risk.

Today I will be talking to myself to try and answer the question: why blog?

I don’t know where I’d be today if I didn’t tinker around with things. Certainly not in software testing, certainly not writing this blog, and certainly not having nearly as much fun, I suppose.