Helps participating in an System Verification Test team getting a better programmer?

Question

Hi all,

I am developing applications for 9 years now - meanly Java. Now am asked to participate in the SVT team for the next release. Overall this means installing complex system setups and running specific user scenarios on these setups as well as doing long runs and load runs.

Overall I am positive about it as I will learn something new. But I am also affraid to loose some grip and knowledge with programming, because of not doing it a lot then.

I know doing programming in side projects such as helping with open source projects will be one alternative, but finding the time on top of a familiy life and a fulltime jop is not that easy.

What do you think, is doing concrete testing work helping getting a better software engineer?

Thanks in advance, Michael

Answer 1

Testing isn't asside of programming.

You can still program automated systems so you can have recursion testing. From unit tests to real complex automated systems, the best i know is selenium which generates code you can use to build testing scripts in most languages.

There are other tools for non webapps. But I personaly believe that testing is a bit far away from "stoping coding. Unless you're just doing user point-of-view testing.

You can also do error injections which will make you write small singletons to inject them in the memory of your application.

So you can code while testing ;) and learn new stuff also. Having been in a testing team i think it really helps, because you'll learn to exploit code easily, which will reflect when you build your own API or App at a later date.

Answer 2

I would say it depends on your skill and temparament. Programming knowledge will serve you well while testing. At the same time, I know that it needs a different approach and mindset and is on a completely different career track. You can always keep up your programming skills by writing code for a project you like (even if you have to make one up).