Fellow tester and cartoonist Andy Glover showed up on the SQA testing cartoon scene earlier this year with his comic strip Cartoon Tester. Andy does a great job in recognizing, mocking, and illustrating the classic tester and developer relationship as well as the general testers' life. When I discovered and read his comic for the first time in the first Software Testing Club magazine I found myself laughing out loud.

The sad, sad truth about software development. It's hilarious! Make sure and subscribe to Andy's comic here.

The first copy of the Software Testing Club magazine (STC) is out! I had a chance to review it before the release and I have to say it's a really cool magazine. It's fun, different, and not so stuffy. SQA talk can get so boring, but STC breaks out of that box. Between the articles written by the community, the artwork, the comic strips, and the smart-ass QA and development quotes on the bottom-left of every other page, I found myself having a great time reading it. I really enjoyed the comics by Andy Glover, and found myself laughing out loud over them.

I'd like to also point out that my Do Loop Until 0 comic is in the magazine. Not necessarily funny, but a quick view of the realities of testers and developers in the software development environment. I'll admit Do Loop Until 0 can be a little deep at times, but if you study the details closely the irony will hit you like  a sledgehammer. The more I do the strip, the more I realize how Spy vs. Spy influenced me as a child.

Take a look yourself here, I really do think you'd enjoy it.

See more development and QA related comics at Code Comics.

[click to enlarge]

[click to enlarge]

I've been using Adobe Photoshop since version 3.0.  Back in the day I had to to insert MANY 3.5" floppy disks to install it on my PC (20 or more I think). Oh, the good old days... Fast forward to 2009. I use Photoshop a LOT. For all kinds of things. Web design, logo design, photography touch up, creative drawing, etc. I LOVE graphic design.

I also love software quality assurance. I've had a desire for nearly two years to express my quality assurance thoughts via a comic. Over those years I've toyed with some ideas, created a few proto-types that included monkeys as testers, and received some great "How-To" advice from Brad Fitzpatrick. Inspired by Brad Fitzpatrick, IKEA assembly instructions, Shadow Culture's Bug Bash, and a TDD poster I think I've come up with something. I'm not sure that we're dealing with a "comic"  because it's not necessarily funny (at least not my first two strips). It's more of an illustration of simple things that occur between a Quality Assurance Engineer and a Software Developer, and yet more complex thoughts or methodologies occurring in the industry. I suppose that it could be more of a graphic storytelling that reveals a sick truth, simple lesson, or moral? I'm a very visual person. Images stick with me better than words. I know I'm not the only one. Through these images and subtle text hints I hope to tease the QA and developer mind and invoke some QA thought.

My new comic is entitled "DO LOOP UNTIL 0", a name that is a software defect itself... In the BASIC language, "DO LOOP UNTIL 0" causes an infinite loop. Infinite loops are just plain bad when it comes to software. :)

For now I'll host it here on QaInsight.net, you can also get to it via DoLoopUntil0.com and DoLoopUntilZero.com. Once it becomes wildly successful and crashes the server in my office closet I'll think about giving it a real dedicated home. Until then, let me know how I'm doing. Your comments are inspiring, good or bad.

Oh, the comic... I'll post the first in the next few days. I'm still tweaking a few brush strokes... err... pixels.

This has been around a while but...

I'll give $20 bucks to the brave QA Engineer who names their son or daughter one of the following:

• <script>alert('xss')</script>
• &lt;script&gt;alert('xss')&lt;/script&gt;
• %3C%73%63%72%69%70%74%3E%61%6C%65%72%74%28%27% 78%73%73%27%29%3C%2F%73%63%72%69%70%74%3E
• PHNjcmlwdD5hbGVydCgneHNzJyk8L3NjcmlwdD4

...poor kid

Don't quit your day job...

SQG (Solo QA Guy) seeking readers. QAInsight.net is so lonely...

I guess it would help if I blogged about QA a bit more...

I've added a twist to the classic software development cartoon. The original creator forgot about QA...

[click to enlarge]