Entries from February 2007 ↓

This is the forwarded Email Message from TCS employee:

The date for the DT drive is yet to be finalized. Tentatively we are looking at Mid of March 2007 for the process to take place. The final date shall be informed to all well in advance.

Inform your family and friends…India’s first and Asia’s largest IT Consulting and Services Organsiation is hiring freshers!!

Eligibility Criteria:
Year of Passing : 2006- Candidates who have graduated in 2006 alone need to apply.

Disciplines:
- UG-BE / BTech [Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engg, Electronics & Electrical Engg, Electronics & Telecom, Electronics & Instrumentations, Electronics & Communication Engg, Instrumentation & Control.]

- PG-ME / MTech (Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engg, Electronics & Electrical Engg, Electronics & Telecom, Electronics & Instrumentations, Electronics & Communication Engg, Instrumentation & Control)

Academic Performance

- 60 % in Std X, XII, Graduation and Post Graduation ( Simple average for all the years of Engg.)
- Candidates should not be having more than 2 years gap in their career.
- No pending backlog at the time of appearing for the aptitude test.

So, if you know anyone who wants to be part of an organisation that values its people and believes in them, please ask them to apply online at www.careers.tcs.com

Last Date for Registration: 4 March 2007
Please note that this is NOT a Walk-in and the Shortlisting would be done EXCLUSIVELY through the portal (www.careers.tcs.com).

A million Dollar question!!!
Why does Software have bugs?

There are many reasons for Bug in software, Most are man introduced and some are machine oriented.

Here is the the broad list:

1. Miscommunication or no communication –
As to specifics of what an application should or shouldn’t do (the application’s requirements).

2. Software complexity –
The complexity of current software applications can be difficult to comprehend for anyone without experience in modern-day software development. Windows-type interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data communications, enormous relational databases, and sheer size of applications have all contributed to the exponential growth in software/system complexity. And the use of object-oriented techniques can complicate instead of simplify a project unless it is well-engineered.

3. Programming errors -
Programmers, like anyone else, can make mistakes.

4. Changing requirements -
The customer may not understand the effects of changes, or may understand and request them anyway – redesign, rescheduling of engineers, effects on other projects, work already completed that may have to be redone or thrown out, hardware requirements that may be affected, etc. If there are many minor changes or any major changes, known and unknown dependencies among parts of the project are likely to interact and cause problems, and the complexity of keeping track of changes may result in errors. Enthusiasm of engineering staff may be affected. In some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified requirements may be a fact of life. In this case, management must understand the resulting risks, and QA and test engineers must adapt and plan for continuous extensive testing to keep the inevitable bugs from running out of control.

5. Time pressures -
Scheduling of software projects is difficult at best, often requiring a lot of guesswork. When deadlines loom and the crunch comes, mistakes will be made.

Egos – people prefer to say things like:
‘no problem’
‘piece of cake’
‘I can whip that out in a few hours’
‘it should be easy to update that old code’

Instead of:
‘that adds a lot of complexity and we could end up
making a lot of mistakes’
‘we have no idea if we can do that; we’ll wing it’
‘I can’t estimate how long it will take, until I
take a close look at it’
‘we can’t figure out what that old spaghetti code
did in the first place’

If there are too many unrealistic ‘no problem’s', the result is bugs.
1. Poorly documented code -
It’s tough to maintain and modify code that is badly written or poorly documented; the result is bugs. In many organizations management provides no incentive for programmers to document their code or write clear, understandable code. In fact, it’s usually the opposite: they get points mostly for quickly turning out code, and there’s job security if nobody else can understand it (‘if it was hard to write, it should be hard to read’).

2 Software development tools -
Visual tools, class libraries, compilers, scripting tools, etc. often introduce their own bugs or are poorly documented, resulting in added bugs.

Screening questions: Interviewer can Reject the candidate if he /she is not able to answer 2 questions out of following 4 questions:

1. Where did you learn WinRunner and TestDirector?

If they say it was in a mercury class, ask if they can show you their
certificate of completion. If they say no, let them know you will verify it
with Mercury.

2. Have you ever created a start-up script?

If they answer “yes”, ask them
what was in it and how they got WR to execute the start-up script when WR is
invoked.

They should answer something like this, “In the start-up script, we loaded all
the gui maps for the application, any library files we needed, and any custom
gui object mapping we have to do. We also loaded global variables and system
variables here. The startup script location is added to the WR .ini file,
wrun.ini located under the windows or winnt directory as wrun.ini”

3. What is the difference between writing a function and writing a script?

They should mention some of these things:
1. A function goes into a “compiled module”, a script does not.
2. A function follows strict “c” syntax. For instance, you have to declare
all variables created and used in the function. In a script you do not.

4. What is the difference between “set_window” and “win_activate”.?
When would you use “set_window” and when would you use “win_activate”?
win_activate has the format win_activate(window);. The win_activate function
makes the specified window the active window by bringing it into focus and
raising it to the top of the display. (It is the equivalent to clicking on the
window banner)

Set_window has the following format: set_window(window,[time]);
The set_window function directs input to the correct application window. This
directs the GUI map to this window. It also sets the scope for object
identification in the GUI map.

The most important difference is that set_window has a timing option.
WinRunner will wait a maximum of the number used in the function, PLUS the
system set timeout, to wait for the window to appear. Win_activate assumes the
window is already on the desktop and has no timing option.

These are some simple questions that should be very easy for a WR user who has
at least 6 months of good experience to answer.

IBM India is hiring software professionals for ALL DOMAINS/AREA/POSITIONS.

You MUST have 16 years of formal education to qualify for IBM interviews.

Selected candidates will be provided on-spot offer letter.

Experience required are as follows

C/C++/Unix 3+
MainFrame 1+
EAI & Middleware 1+
Java 2+
.Net 2+
SAP 2+
SEIBEL 2+
Datawarehousing(DW&BI) 2+
Learing & development 3+
Groupware 2+
DBMS 3+
Oracle Apps 3+
Peoplesoft 3+
Testing 3+
Telecom 3+
Quality 3+

If you, your friend or a relative is interested in working with IBM send a copy of resume. Send your resume on following ID:
ibm.referral@gmail.com

Selected candidate Interviews will be held at at IBM offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Calcutta, Gurgoan and Delhi on February 24 & 25.

Also IBM India Labs (ISL) is hiring Developers, Architects, Project Managers with experience ranging from 2-15 years for Java, J2EE, C, C++, Unix, Linux, Databases – Software Engineer/Tech Lead/Project Manager

From last couple of days I am getting more request on Sample test plan.
So for your reference I am including one sample test plan template here.

Its a Index of Test plan only.
Each point will help you to elaborate your test plan step by step.
Take this as a guideline and develop a full Test plan for Your project.

Table of Contents :

1. Introduction
1.1. Test Plan Objectives

2. Scope
2.1. Data Entry
2.2. Reports File Transfer
2.3. File Transfer
2.4. Security

3. Test Strategy
3.1. System Test
3.2. Performance Test
3.3. Security Test
3.4. Automated Test
3.5. Stress and Volume Test
3.6. Recovery Test
3.7. Documentation Test
3.8. Beta Test
3.9. User Acceptance Test

4. Environment Requirements
4.1. Data Entry workstations
4.2 MainFrame

5. Test Schedule

6. Control Procedures
6.1 Reviews
6.2 Bug Review meetings
6.3 Change Request
6.4 Defect Reporting

7. Functions To Be Tested

8. Resources and Responsibilities
8.1. Resources
8.2. Responsibilities

9. Deliverables

10. Suspension / Exit Criteria

11. Resumption Criteria

12. Dependencies
12.1 Personnel Dependencies
12.2 Software Dependencies
12.3 Hardware Dependencies
12.3 Test Data & Database

13. Risks
13.1. Schedule
13.2. Technical
13.3. Management
13.4. Personnel
13.5 Requirements

14. Tools

15. Documentation

16. Approvals

Let me know if you still want example Test plan!!

Update: You can visit the latest updated article on Sample Test plan. You can also download pdf file version of this Test plan template on this post.

International Certifications:

1) Foundation Level :
Know more at : http://www.istqb.org/fileadmin/media/SyllabusFoundation.pdf
2) Advanced Level :
Know more at : http://www.istqb.org/fileadmin/media/SyllabusAdvanced.pdf

QA institute certifications :

1) Certified Software Tester (CSTE) :
know more at : http://www.softwarecertifications.org/qai_cste.htm
2) Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) :
know more at : http://www.softwarecertifications.org/qai_cqa.htm
3) Certified Software Project Manager (CSPM) :
know more at : http://www.softwarecertifications.org/qai_cspm.htm

International institute of software testing:

1) Certified Software Test Professional (CSTP) :
know more at : http://www.testinginstitute.com/cstp.php
2) Certified Test Manager (CTM) :
know more at : http://www.testinginstitute.com/ctm.php