QA Hates You

Who hasn’t felt like this?

The key is to take it out on the software, brothers and sisters. It’s not just a vocation, it’s therapy.

A bit of Bocephus to start the week:

Sure, it’s a country song, but it’s a gritty country song about self-reliance. You know what? QA ain’t respected much among the cool kids in IT, but we maintain our own machines and computer labs, design and develop tests and test scripts, and divine the ill intentions of developers and project managers and act accordingly. QA can do it all, and sometimes we’d like to spit some beechwood into them dudes’ eyes.

Also, note Junior once fell off of a mountain and broke himself up so badly that his brain was exposed to the open air. And that’s before his best years of recording. He’s tough enough for QA.

gimlet thinks my British readers might fancy some Judas Priest.

Sometimes you can have your pudding before you eat your meat. But you’ve got the rest of the week to tear and rend.

The eternal dilemma of QA: Did we go to the school of hard knocks, or are we the school of hard knocks that dev goes to?

Silly question. The former, obviously, since dev never learns.

Here’s a pinch of L7 to start your work week:

Now shove.

A bit of Winger to start the week.

In a side not, I am working on my screenplay for Bill and Ted’s Gnarly Career wherein our heroes become IT professionals and meet the archetypes we work with every day.

First guy in the office, and now you have to wait for the coffee to brew? Here, QAHY has you covered with a little verbal caffeine:

Plus it will give you a little brain teaser as you point out all the misspellings in the lyrics. On one hand, I don’t think English is the first language of the guy who put this together. On the other hand, it’s not the first language of your offshore team who’s responsible for ad libbing the error messages in your application, either.

And remember, Mötley Crüe is a brand name, so it’s supposed to be misspelled.

Well, not for the Finnish readers, since they pause their Nightwish CDs to play whatever I throw up here. Here’s Nightwish playing “Slay the Dreamer” live.

Now go out there and metaphorically slay the dreamer in your office, the project manager who thinks the application will ship with no level 1 or 2 defects on Thursday.

Jeez, I spend so much time trying to think of clever QA songs that I ignore the obvious Iron Maiden.

I should get more of them into the QAHY rotation for you since they’re sure in rotation in the QA lab.

Here’s an uplifting song about the software development industry to start your week:

Ted Nugent is my project manager!

A Rolling Stone gathers no moss.

As a reminder, friends, neither does one you throw through a developer’s glass ego.

A bit of filk for you this morning. Filk, of course, is science fiction and fantasy folk music. This song combines two of the luminaries in the field, Julia Ecklar and Leslie Fish, putting Rudyard Kipling’s “Hymn to Breaking Strain” to music.

Have I used this before? If so, consider this a regression post.

In the beautiful world of IT, tester, you know where you belong.

Yeah, that’s what they think about you. Now what are you going to do about it?

Yeah, I know, in the United State, it’s a business holiday. But if you’re on another continent or you’re self-employed, it’s not.

You know, most of a-ha’s catalog of music is kinda melancholy, but this song kicks you right in the nihilism:

Note this is not the version from the film of the same name. As a matter of fact, a-ha was not very happy with that version, which led to a dust-up with the filmmakers. As this song should lead you to have a dust-up with pretty much everyone in your organization. If you weren’t going to have one on general principle, I mean.

Dear Rockwell,

QA is watching you. And everyone else.

Metallica’s Enter Sandman:

It’s a rousing song for QA, because we are the sandmen. This song celebrates the nightmares we create for dev and project management every night.

Here’s a bit more Pink Floyd to get you contemplating existence, QA, and the shape of things to break:

For my money, no song captures the role of QA in the SDLC quite like “Eclipse”.

There’s only one Pink Floyd song that makes me weepy in my whiskey (that’s whisky for my English readers):

We shared a lot of good times in the bad times, brothers and sisters. But I know you’ve gone to a better place, even if that’s unemployment.

You know, there are some analogies to QA from other professions.

The chief difference between coal mining and software testing? QA makes your heart black.

As you can tell by my musical selections, I’m an old timey rock and roll fan. However, I realize that some members of the underground are biting new victims and turning younger kids in to junior testers, so I’ll heed reader Petr Hanák who thinks this I’ll Attack band and their song “30 Seconds From Mars” is the proper bit to play on the lawn of old timers like me.

It rocks all right.

(Yes, thank you, I know I transposed the band name and the song name. That’s called humor, you damn kids. Faster than you know, this will be classic rock that the kids don’t get.)