Convert a string to a list

Ruby is one of my favourite languages. Its because of its ease of use. I always had  a problem of converting a long string as a list to put in excel. Before I knew any scripting I used to do it manually by copy pasting each word of string in excel. This was not so frequent, so I did not pay much attention but this situation gave me some motivation. I thought of finiding a solution using ruby. Its damn easy and a permanent solution. you can do it only with very few lines of code

fruits = "apple,mango,pear,water melon,guava,black and blue (berries)"
list = [fruits]
list.each do|ps|
  a = ps.split(/,/)
  puts a
end

Output is:
apple
mango
pear
water melon
guava
black and blue (berries)

Now I can easily put it in an excel

Explanation:

I am storing the string in a string variable, then passing it to an array list. Then I iterate over the array and split when there is a ',' and then store each element in variable 'a' and print it on screen.

I know this can be done in many other ways, I would love to see that. feel free if you have more better solutions. My intention here is to solve my problem and get some hands on with ruby.

Good bug report

This post was born as a result of message from a colleague tester who is new to this field of testing.

[12:51:41 PM] xyz: i was playing and there was hang problem
[12:51:58 PM] xyz: and all of a sudden i got that msg and i was out

My first reaction was not good, but later I realized even I have done these things when I was a novice. So, I planned to help tester in a simple way

What is a good bug report? what is its main purpose?
A good bug report consists of all relevant information for a developer about the bug
Main pupose is to help developer reproduce and fix it

What is all relevant information?
Short summary of the defect that clearly describes the defect
Environment details
Is it reproducible? if yes steps to reproduce
Actual result vs expected result
Any screenshots or videos of the defect attached?
Any specific build no
Which area this bug belongs to in the software/application you are testing?
Test data used
What is the severity, means how much damage it does?

Who is the audience of bug reports?
Mostly developers, but there can be testers & managers who might be interested

If you feel I have missed any point or you can add to it from your experience feel free to do that

He is not technical?

Scene: In a scrum a developer was explaining an issue to a tester, manager interrupts & tells, please explain him functionally, "he is not a technical person".

what does this mean "He is not technical ?", I keep wondering

should the tester get offended? or appreciate manager for protecting him?

I feel testers need to be both functional and technical to do justice for their role. Its a myth that a tester need not be technical or he commits a crime if he is inclined towards the technical aspects of software. Infact it is an important skill.

Back after a long time

I realized that blogging is not a easy job. I appreciate people who blog regularly because it needs discipline, time management and proper organization of ideas. I take some inspiration from them and get things moving in my blog. It been a long gap since I updated my last post. There are many things I would like to update.

I still have my goal this year to improve my writing and blogging skills. I have been trying to push myself to do many things recently but not so encouraging results.  

Thats all for now

adios

"My name is BUG - I am here by chance, not by choice"

I am a bug, I live in software jungles, I get life from humans beings. I occur in many forms, people call me with different names...defect, fault, bug, problem, issue...etc. I am captured in screenshots and videos...some times I am reproducible and some times not...when I am reproducible developers torcher me by reproducing many times and then heal me with their fix. A few careless developers partially fix me causing me more pain and anguish, due to this I hang, freeze, go into a never ending loop, crash, blank...
I am sometimes a mystery and sometimes history.

I get more annoyed when I see others also suffer along with me. I don't intend to harm anyone, my creator is responsible for all the pain and suffering. I live in bug repositories with a house number called bug id. my age is counted from the day I enter into the bug repository. some times testers are so careless that they don't allow to get me a house number. I have to survive in the sofware jungle till then. Along with Id I am assigned a severity based on the harm I cause in the software jungle/system. But poor fellows don't know its not me but my creator, I am only the doer. I always pray my creator not to give me a life. otherwise I need to pass through the karma/defect life cycle. I am relieved once I get fixed but there is no guarantee that I have rebirth. it is karma of developer whether I get rebirth or not :)

Testers are my angels who always strive to relieve us from this defect life. once I am fixed and tested I am HISTORY. I am listed in the annals of defect repository based on the havoc I did in the system.

My biggest embarassment is when I get caught or seen in real world resulting in loss of life or money or reputation. I get entry into bug repository with a special tag called production defect with "High Priority-High Severity". But I console myself that with pain comes pleasure. If embarassement is pain, then my chances of getting fixed is sure to get releived from this defect life. some times due to my bad karma humans assume my importance of causing harm is reduced, and I am pushed into the list of bad karma bugs or what they call low priority bugs, that keep lying there for years.

I thank my tester friends who locate & find us in the deep, complex jungles of huge software systems. They bring us to the forefront from the deep, dark, isolated lonely life and give hope of getting fixed. They argue and recommend with different stakeholders to relieve us as soon as possible. sometimes poor guys need to pick only few of us not by age but by damage we cause.

Oh God If I have a next birth as human, please make me a tester :)

Happy testing,

Note: This post is written only for fun, no bad intentions for testers or developers    

Da Bug - Happy New Year 2011

This is my first post this year. IT seems to be back in business after few ups and downs last year. I am very excited to see new gadgets and software that are definitely going to change the way we do things. Desktops and laptops may soon become second nature and same is with mobile phones. Internet has become a part of our lives. I bet most of the crowd in the world is some way or other using internet.

what ever the technology or trends come, one thing which will always accompany them is a bug/defect/fault/failure. Yes, its makes me wonder and also excited when ever I hear these terms which are part of my profession.

The uncertainity in the software bring in mystery, curiosity and detective instincts. This is motivation for me to see my work as a challenge.

There are tons and tons of software in market today that pass through the defect life cycle in form of maintenance and new ones being injected & created (unknowingly) by developers of all types, by type I mean diff projects or technologies or experience levels etc...we can find them all there lying in the bug repositories, some available on web from the open source community and some lying in the closed doors of commerical companies.

As we know that defects are a good source of information for testers while testing. BUT I have never got lucky to see a good source on internet for a good classification of defects that is useful, may be I always searched the wrong areas, but if we can have a common bug repository for defects related to popular technology or software, then that would give a lot of diverse information when testing any kind of software.

One good source that comes to my mind is the crowdsourcing kind of companies/sites that may have this kind of repository and definitely they use it to improve their testing efforts.


1 problem is called BUG
2 or more are called BUGS
A problem that cause loss of money or life is called "The BUG"
Finding and reducing no of problems is called De BUG
what does a developer call a rookie tester who annoys him with silly bugs...A silly little B U G _ _ _ ? you know it :)

Keep bugging