Dragons Out

Last week I participated in Mimmit koodaa (women code) program's  This is Not a Webinar  where two of my Finnish Dragons Out! books were prizes in a book draw. The event was most inspiring also for a man - it was great to see equal opportunities rising for women to participate in the Information and Communication Technology field. Through great examples, it becomes a norm that it doesn't make a difference what gender you are in the ICT field. I'm happy to give one more example with my book's characters which are equally represented. I even start the book with a little girl as the main heroine. I'm happy to congratulate Heidi Särkioja and Katri-Maija Karvonen for winning the book prizes! And thanks to my publisher Avain for giving these books, too! Another item I would like to raise in this blog post is the conclusion from the feedback survey that I ran this winter/spring among those who preordered Finnish books and among the Finnish schools that received donated boo

This week I had the joy of being interviewed by Marko Suomi for his Takakansi podcast which has over 100 episodes of interesting book and author interviews. You can listen to it here:  https://takakansi.fi/2021/04/06/kari-kakkonen-miten-ajatella-kuin-testaaja/ We discussed the Dragons Out! book of course, but also software testing in general. What is software testing, for your regular person? I explained that it is checking that all that is supposed to be is there, but also trying to explore the software in ways that reveal the unexpected circumstances. You can find defects in both ways. Usually, you end up running the tests that check against the user requirements multiples times, and thus these tests are good candidates for test automation. This repetition is because of the iterative nature of software development - software is built as parts and the developers are continuously integrating more code to the software they already have and what has been tested. Anything may break when y

Last week was a blur spent on running an online version of ISTQB General Assembly. Many things to do in a short amount of time. However, I also had the pleasure of presenting my Dragons Out book project at JSTQB conference in Tokyo, Japan. I delivered my talk online as the case has been for all corona-time presentations. This time the suitable balance of reliable presentation and audience interaction was achieved by a recorded presentation and a live Q&A through Zoom. Particularly interesting was that I got questions both verbally from the host Kenji Tonishi translating them from Japanese participants and from the Zoom chat where Hidetoshi Suhara translated Japanese text to English. As they translated my answers back to Japanese, I had time to switch between the two forms of answering questions. Another great experience! The questions themselves were interesting, too. I'll pick one: "Have you ever come up with a dragon that you have then discarded?". My answer: "

 I have some great news! My English publisher Austin Macauley sent me the layout of the English edition of the Dragons Out book, and I've just reviewed it. The work proceeds nicely. I also got an estimate that the publishing date may be in about two months. We are getting there! A more precise schedule will be available once we get to the printing process. Those who have preordered the English version of the book will soon get their books! In my last blog, I published the feedback survey for all others who have ordered the Finnish book than the schools. You may remember the great feedback averages from the first responses to the school survey. Now, I'm happy to give you the first results of the other readers' survey. The book gets a super average of 4.8 on a scale of 1-5. The presentation gets a 4.33 average. The readers estimated also how much the children liked the book, too, with an average of 4.0. Thank you all who answered the two surveys so far. Keep the responses com

Last week I sent out a feedback survey to Finnish schools, and the first numbers are great! Now I'm launching a similar survey to all Finnish readers, here . Also, it is encouraging to see a flattering article in MAL-magazine. How about voting me for the Tester of the Year with the book project as the main merit? The first results of the feedback survey for schools have arrived. The book gets a nice average of 4.2 on a scale of 1-5. The presentation gets a 4.25 average. The teachers estimated also how much the children liked the book, too, with an average of 4.2. Encouraging numbers and other data, too. Now, how about the rest of the Finnish readers? What have you done with your books? Would you please spend 5 minutes answering the survey,   here ? I try to pull together some more statistics in April, so I appreciate your answers in March is possible! Good decision-making is data-driven, so I'd like to get your feedback on what to do next, I was interviewed by MAL-magazine and

 Vote for me to be Tester of the Year 2020 in Finland! Publishing the Dragons Out children's book about testing really contributes to the software testing world! : ) I'm honoured! Vote using this form https://link.webropol.com/s/vuodentestaaja2020aanestys  - just click my name and "lähetä" in the end!  I truly want to contribute not only to the software testing domain but to a better world. I think software testing is the natural route towards that. Better testing, better quality, better software, better business and society, a better world. Or the other way around, fewer defects in the software, less damage to business, lives and environment. The whole idea of the Dragons Out book is to raise awareness with children (and adults, too!) that looking for good quality is an outstanding objective in anyone's life, be it a user of a software or part of the software development team. Testing is then part of that search for good quality, trying to influence in removing d