Proud to be a tester

June 22, 2007 in philosophy, software, testing

When I looked up Testing in Kruchten’s An Introduction to the Rational Unified Process, lately, I found a remarkable statement. A tester – out of all other persons concerned with the software development life cycle – possesses a distinguishable property. She is and has to be negatively biased. She is not striving for success but for destruction. At her best she will fail in crashing the program under test.
This behaviour appears to emulate people who tend to overly critisize. The are generally not well beloved.
In certain cultural environments that type of behaviour is also called “teacherlike”, which does not always denote a high respect for the person.
How should a tester then find pride in her work? The excuse that she helps to increase quality and/or decrease risk of failure – a very noble goal, indeed – will not carry sufficiently. Most people judge upon their first impression. That first impression is of someone who is a destroyer. Deductive reasoning will not change the primary emotional response.
Reading Kruchten I was remembered of a very important book. One of the most famous pieces of the German literature is Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Here, the devil fights for the soul of the curious, but somehow ignorant scientist Faust who is in search for the universal answers.
Wenn Faust first meets Mephistopheles (a very refined projection of the devil) the dialog contains the following rhymes:

FAUST
…
Who then art thou?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Part of that power which still
Produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill.
FAUST
What hidden mystery in this riddle lies?
MEPHISTOPHELES
The spirit I, which evermore denies!
And justly; for whate’er to light is brought
Deserves again to be reduced to naught;
Then better ’twere that naught should be.
Thus all the elements which ye
Destruction, Sin, or briefly, Evil, name,
As my peculiar element I claim.

Originally in German:

FAUST:
…
Nun gut, wer bist du denn?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ein Teil von jener Kraft, Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.
FAUST:
Was ist mit diesem Rätselwort gemeint?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!
Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht,
Ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht;
Drum besser wär’s, daß nichts entstünde.
So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde,
Zerstörung, kurz, das Böse nennt,
Mein eigentliches Element.

I remember my reaction to Faust when I first read it. Faust seems a little bit naive in spite of all his doctorates. Mephisto (as he is called with his short name) seems to have an answer for every questions and certainly knows the human race and its weaknesses.

More can be learned by Mephisto than by Faust, especially when an avid reader also digests Faust 2, where some very interesting items about today’s economy can already be found. (Money waiting for the emperor in the mountains)

It is a complete different story why software programs must contain so many errors. Fortunately, we nowadays realize, that we can not trace errors entirely to sloppiness on behalf of the developers or the analysts.
Granted however, that we are likely to encounter a certain count of severe errors in a program I would rather ask Mephisto than Faust for help.

Spiritually speaking, there are good sides and bad sides within us. There is no better justification for genuine mischieviousness than becoming a very good tester. In that respect, the tester can be very proud of herself. She can live out her bad thoughts in contributing for a positive outcome.
She may produce good, while scheming ill.

Isn’t that a concludent reasoning in order to be proud to be a tester.