A little perspective...

The other day I had a rock in my shoe... It felt HUGE!  I couldn't cope a minute longer to have this boulder in my shoe... So during morning stand-up off came the shoe to shake it out (it was teeny)...

To my co-worker's amazement, the sock I was wearing had a hole - What can I say - it was early when I put them on...

For a couple of minutes "C" went on:

• "Your sock has a HOLE"
• "I can't believe you are wearing those!"
• "Your mother would be mortified"
• And on and on...

So I calmly asked "Your socks don't have holes?"

C answered: "Of course not! I was raised better than that! I would NEVER wear socks with holes." 

And walked right into my trap...

"So how did you get them on?" and C was speechless :)  

It's all about how you think about the world around you and asking the right questions.

Why gardening is like testing software...

It's fun for me to show the relatedness between seemingly unrelated topics...

And so - why to me gardening is like testing...

I have choices to make when starting out about which is the most valuable...

The cheaper approach - planting seeds (in-house development) is often longer and riskier to start, but can have more selection and control. While the more expensive - buying plants or seedlings (3rd party  development) can bring rapid change. And  as always, the hybrid approach - selecting the balance between maturity and cost and control.

Gardeners also have requirements and research to do, just as any tester. They need to learn the limits of their environment (zone), expected boundaries (shade versus sun and how many hours of each can be tolerated), and how the pieces (plants) interact with each other.

Gardeners, like testers, must also consider Fit for Purpose - what purpose are the plants fulfilling - decorative, food, ground cover, or something else.

Similar to testers, gardeners have to consider Fit for User - plants I select for someone else differ greatly from what I select for myself depending on what type of gardener (user) they are.  What works for 1 won't work for another.

Like testing a garden is never "done". There is always new plants to try, and even established plants can suddenly die from an unexpected series of events - just as software can fail under a new scenario!

I guess the main difference is, when it's miserably and rainy out (like today!), it's easier to test software than to garden!