Maaike Brinkhof's blog

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The real reason we need to invent a time machine

The real reason we need to invent a time machine

I was reading a very interesting article in The Guardian: 'All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it': the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on. At the turn of the millennium, I was a mere 14 years old, and did not know

Don't put me in a box

Don't put me in a box

I'm trying to find a new assignment as a self-employed Test Consultant, and this confronts me with some facets of job searching that I don't really enjoy. My main complaint is that most roles try to fit you into a neat little box, and I don&

Neutral Quality is too much to ask for, shitty software is the norm.

Neutral Quality is too much to ask for, shitty software is the norm.

As a testing community, we have failed to make software better. And let me be clear, developers have also failed. We are in the same boat here. I firmly believe that most people working in software development teams are trying their best to create a better software product, write readable

There are no problems if you don't test

There are no problems if you don't test

Dumb people and smart people agree: if you don't test, there are no problems. This conclusion can be reached because you either have one active brain cell or because you are an experienced tester. Let me explain the difference. The dumb part of the story is easy to

Testing is a team sport

Testing is a team sport

Testing is a team sport. Here's a small peek into my thought process when I was confronted with a challenge at work: It's 11:00 AM, and I've just left an online meeting. I made an agreement in that meeting with a colleague to

Here’s how I respond to "have we tested everything?"

Here’s how I respond to "have we tested everything?"

OH: "How can we be sure we have tested everything?". That's the neat part, you don't. I used to get really frustrated when people asked me this question. The person asking is looking for something I cannot give them, even though I would like

Testing and Quality are NOT correlated.

Testing and Quality are NOT correlated.

Software testing and quality aren’t necessarily correlated. Quality is the product of the culture in the company, the teams, and the capabilities of different individuals. Your contributions as an individual tester can influence quality if you're lucky, but sometimes they don't. Why is that? For