{"id":18,"date":"2007-05-29T17:17:22","date_gmt":"2007-05-29T23:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.satisfice.com\/kaner\/?p=18"},"modified":"2007-05-29T17:17:22","modified_gmt":"2007-05-29T23:17:22","slug":"conference-of-the-association-for-software-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Conference of the Association for Software Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAST (Conference of the Association for Software Testing) early bird
\nregistration ends this week. Register at
\nhttp:\/\/associationforsoftwaretesting.org\/conference\/registration.html<\/a><\/p>\n

I just got back from ICSE (the International Conference on Software
\nEngineering). ICSE is the premier conference for academic software
\nengineers–the conference acceptance standards are so high (only 5% of
\nsubmitted papers are accepted) that a paper at ICSE is ranked by
\nacademic bean counters on a par with most computer science journals.<\/p>\n

Many (20%?) of the ICSE sessions involved software testing. It was
\nfrustrating to sit through them because the speaker would talk for a
\nwhile, say some outrageous things, some interesting things and some
\nconfusing things–and then at the end of the talk, we got 3 minutes to
\nask questions and argue with the speaker and the other participants.
\nSome talks (such as an invited address on the Future of Software
\nTesting) were clearly designed to be thought-provoking but with only 5
\nminutes for discussion, their impact evaporated quickly.<\/p>\n

In AST, we think that testers, of all people, should critically evaluate
\nthe ideas that are presented to them and we think that testers’
\nconferences should encourage testers to be testers.<\/p>\n

We designed CAST to foster discussion. Every talk–every keynote, every
\ntrack talk, every tutorial–has plenty of time for discussion. If a talk
\nprovokes a strong discussion, we delay the next talk. If it looks as
\nthough the discussion will go for a long time, we move the next talk to
\nanother room, so people can choose to stay with the discussion or go to
\nthe next talk. I haven’t seen this at any other conference. It
\ncontributes tremendously to the overall quality of the sessions.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you want to come to the meeting to challenge what one of
\nthe speakers is saying, you can prepare some remarks in advance. It is
\nimportant that your response be courteous and appreciative of the effort
\nthe speaker has put into her presentation. If you have that, give Jon
\nBach some notice and you will almost certainly get floor time right
\nafter that speaker.<\/p>\n

Another interesting event at CAST will be the full-day “tutorial” \/
\nworkshop \/ debate on certification. We had a keynote last year on
\ncertification that stirred up so much discussion it nearly took over the
\nrest of the day. This time, it looks like we’ll have representatives of
\nall the main groups who certify software testers, plus an academic
\ncurmudgeon (might be me) who is skeptical of the value of all of them.
\nIf you have ever considered favoring certified software testers in your
\nhiring practices or taking a certification exam to improve your
\nmarketability or credibility, this day will provide a six-way discussion
\nthat compares and contrasts the different approaches to credentialing
\nsoftware testers. I don’t think there has ever been a session like this
\nat any other testing conference.<\/p>\n

ASSOCIATED WORKSHOPS
\nBefore CAST, the Workshop on Heuristic & Exploratory Techniques will
\nexplore boundary analysis (domain testing), how we actually decide what
\nboundaries to consider and what values to use. This might sound
\nstraightforward, but in doing task analyses at some other meetings, we
\ndiscovered that this is a remarkably complex problem. For more
\ninformation, contact Jon Bach.<\/p>\n

After CAST, the Workshop on Open Certification will meet to develop
\ncertification questions and work out the logistics of developing the
\nExam Server (we already have a Question Server running for the project).
\nIf you want to contribute to this project, contact Mike Kelly or Cem
\nKaner. For more info, see http:\/\/www.FreeTestingCertification.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAST (Conference of the Association for Software Testing) early bird registration ends this week. Register at http:\/\/associationforsoftwaretesting.org\/conference\/registration.html I just got back from ICSE (the International Conference on Software Engineering). ICSE is the premier conference for academic software engineers–the conference acceptance standards are so high (only 5% of submitted papers are accepted) that a paper at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}