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#ProudDadMoment - My Son thinking like a Tester

The other night I was bathing my 2 kids, and they wanted me to read them a story. My daughter chose a book on time and clocks (I can't remember the name of the book right now), so I sat down and began to read it to them as they had a bath.

It was full of interesting stuff (to them at least), it would explain what can happen in different time-frames. One of the examples it gave was for 1 minute. It said:

In 1 minute a Cheetah can run around a race track 4 times

This is pretty cool, highlighting how quick a Cheetah actually is. Now the tester in me, instantly thought "well depends how long the race track is, I'm pretty sure it's talking about a 400m race track - but still it should be clear"... Then my son, as if he is reading my mind says "It depends how long a race track is"... I looked at him and said "You're right! It does depend on how long the race track is!"

Why am I talking about this? How does it relate to Testing?

Well a lot of testing involves challenging assumptions, it involves questioning the norm and thinking outside of the box.  It involves being sceptical and nit-picking which is hard at times when you're sat in a team, who are often your friends, it becomes important in how you say things and it isn't just down to what you say.

So next time someone says something to you, or you read something that might lead you to naturally assume something, think again, re-read what you read, or run through what that person said and question it in some way, it might not change anything about what was originally said/read, but there is a chance it could drastically change the initial understanding.

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