Dragons Out at EuroSTAR and a Learning excerpt from book

Today EuroSTAR announced the program of this largest software testing conference in Europe. My Dragons Out talk about how children learn about software testing is there! The conference takes place online this year due to the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis. Anyway, it will be great! So join me there to hear more about how children learn - and of course a bit about the book : )

As for today's excerpt from the book, I've chosen a piece about learning, as EuroSTAR theme for 2020 is Learn Together From Anywhere. This excerpt is from chapter four. It also features the name of the book!

--
When autumn arrived, the villagers put the logs in place. Each log was driven deep into the ground, and the builders filled the pit around the log to the ground level. In this way, each log stood firmly on its own. Each time there were ten logs upright, three crossbeams joined them. Mathilda's wood-building skills were needed. The work progressed nicely.


After summer, the villagers build the palisade in small, 10-meter parts. Each part is made ready at a time. In the world of software development, and especially in agile software development, you make software ready one small piece at a time. It is easier to learn how the software works and what types of defects it has.

Be that as it may, the knights were right about the dragons. As soon as they had erected the first ten meters of the palisade, little dragons appeared to bother the construction team. The dragons were green and glittering creatures, about the same size as dogs. They had large leathery wings, with which they flew around with ease. They were breathing fire all the time. Albert was the first to notice them, for he had taken the habit of observing the construction on the roof of a nearby house. He guided the knights by shouting, "Dragons out!" Albert thought it would be better to drive the dragons away rather than kill them.

People notice that there are many different ways to defeat dragons. You can anticipate their activity. Similarly, many defects in software can be expected and prevented by considering them ahead of time. Albert notices the dragons first. This testing done by a user is acceptance testing. In many cases, the developers of new software rely on user testing, especially if the software is for a single company.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Article in Dimensio-magazine

I recently had a chance to write in the magazine of math teachers. Mathematics is one of the natural stepping stones towards software development and software testing. The association of math teachers (MAOL) has been interested in cooperation with me. They considered software testing to be an interesting angle for anyone interested in mathematics. I wrote about my book writing project and how software testing can be taught to children via a fantasy book. The article is in Finnish here: https://www.dimensiolehti.fi/opetetaan-lapsille-ohjelmistotestausta-fantasiakirjan-avulla/
Read more

Amazing feedback and school visits

Image
 I recently got some  amazing feedback  from a 9-year-old reader through his dad. The Dragons Out book was an exciting Christmas present that the boy started reading on his own. He did the exercises at the end of the chapters and was really thrilled about them ("I did all of those great exercises!"). Upon asking why the book was so thrilling, he answered, "It was a great book because it had true things and fantasy side by side, and the exercises were fun!". It feels so good to hear such feedback - keep it coming! The unique approach of fantasy coupled with testing works. Remember my school visits, earlier? It is  again time to have school visits in Finland , too. It is especially nice now that face-to-face meetings are possible, and I don't need to access the school class virtually over a Teams meeting. That works too, yes, with a teacher facilitating in the class, but it is so much nicer and more concrete to meet and teach children face-to-face. I asked for som
Read more

How it all started

I got my first idea for a book that would combine fantasy and software testing years ago. I wanted to find a way to make software testing interesting to kids. People in the software testing industry understand very well that there is always a shortage of software testing. It usually stems from not knowing enough about the importance of testing. Testing is easily considered a necessary evil. However, it is enormous fun and a profession of its own. Why not tell about the fun of software testing already to children in an engaging way? Dragons and knights found their way into my book. Finally, my sabbatical year gave me a chance to put some words together to make the story. I wrote the first draft of the first chapter in Finnish in late 2018 and sped up with the other chapters during the rest of my sabbatical in 2019.  There are many more steps to take, including deciding about the extent of illustration, negotiating with book publishers, and editing the book. But we'll get there soo
Read more