Recently
uTest posted
"8 Common Excuses in Software Testing" and within the comments there was a link to
"Excuses for testers when bugs are caught in later testing cycles/UAT/Production".
My immediate thought was '
WTF? Why would I need excuses?'.
Reasons, yes, explanations, yes, but excuses? Hell no.
Am I wrong? Do I need excuses?
Or am I getting
reasons and
excuses mixed up? Are some people taking them to mean the same thing?
At the end of
"Excuses for testers when bugs are caught in later testing cycles/UAT/Production". There is this sentence '
Well these are not actually excuses. These can be the actual reasons why an application is shipped to client with major bugs.'
The way I understand the two in this context are:
Reasons
1.a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc.: the reason for declaring war.
2.a statement presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action.
Excuses
1.to regard or judge with forgiveness or indulgence; pardon or forgive; overlook (a fault, error, etc.): Excuse his bad manners.
2.to offer an apology for; seek to remove the blame of: He excused his absence by saying that he was ill.
3.to serve as an apology or justification for; justify: Ignorance of the law excuses no one.
I am not a gate keeper, I am an information provider, I have limited time to provide what information I can.
I will do my best, the people around me will do their best and sometimes we will not be able to investigate everything.
I'm happy to explain things but make up excuses? I think that will do more harm than good.
There are plenty of reasons why issues end up in production, learn from them, explain, improve how you test and what you test.
Don't make excuses.
28/01/13 Update.
Forgot to add, what and how you are testing and what you are not testing should be communicated and continuously communicated as you delve deeper into the software.
