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Speaking of testing

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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
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Winner of JSTQB conference draw about the dragon drawings

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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: "
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English layout reviewed, survey results, book extract

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 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
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Feedback survey, great article and voting!

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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
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Vote Kari for Tester of the Year with the Dragons Out book credits

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 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
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Finnish books now selling at Avain, English books available for preorder

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The big Christmas campaign of Finnish Dragons Out books for Christmas, and topping up the school donation numbers, was a great success. I continued the campaign also in January just a bit with the remains of my preorder stock. Now all of that is exhausted, and I have just some copies for later use left. Thanks to all the 21 donating companies and associations. Thanks all who purchased from me so that I could also donate personally to schools (one donated book per three sold books). Thanks to the 59 schools who were enthusiastic to receive donations! For further purchases of the Finnish Dragons Out book, I would invite you to use my publisher's webshop here .  If you still want to donate, you can always buy a few books and take them to a local school. I'd appreciate learning the names of the schools from you so that I can add them to the list of donation recipients that I'm gathering for the Ministry of Education. The Minister is a very busy person but his personal secretary
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News and book reviews of Dragons Out Finnish book

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It's great to get reviews and articles in different newspapers and websites. The latest ones to tell about the world about the Dragons Out book - bringing software testing to children - are Dimensio-magazine and Kakkonen Family association. Dimensio-magazine is the MAOL's official magazine, bringing out topics important for all math teachers. They ran an interview with me already a year ago, and now they did a book review of the Dragons Out book. Tuomo Riekkinen from MAOL ry read the book and wrote many kind words in his book review here:  Dragons Out - lohikäärmesatuja nuorille . Kakkonen Family association is the family research association of Kakkonen Family, so it was great to get my story there, to tell everyone what yet another Kakkonen has accomplished. The article is here . And only a week before I was on the front-page of Keski-Häme newspaper - or rather one of the dragons from book illustration by Adri Szell was there. It was a great piece about book donations to scho
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