Tuesday, June 21, 2011

How much does a certificate matter?

Have a look at this conversation:

Friend A: Hey Man, I am now a certified Java Programmer
Friend B: That’s Gr8 dude !!!
A: Yeah I know. Today was the last day to get certified so I am really relaxed now.
B: Huh, What do you mean by last day?
A: Well, today was the deadline for our batch in our company to get certified.
B: Ohh I see…so you must be aware of multiprogramming feature of Java. Please explain it to me. I am not able to implement it.
A: Sure. Multiprogramming is ’Yada Yada Yada…blah blah blah….’
B: Dude, even I know the definition of it but how do you use it??
A: Sorry man I won’t be able to help you on that. I haven’t used it myself either.
B: But you just got certified right? Wasn’t this topic in your syllabus???
A: It was but I didn’t really go deep into it because in the exam you don’t get very hard questions related to this.

First of all, I would like to say that I am not against any certification !!! I am against those who force people to get certified.
Generally people get certified because they have been asked to do so or they are looking for a job which demands a certification.
But I’ve also seen people who challenge themselves for a certification & I am proud to say that I belong to this category. I recently became a certified tester but I wasn’t told to do so. No one told me to get certified in x months.
I have only 9 months experience in testing so when I was preparing for the exam, I could relate most of the topics with the experiences that I had. This has helped me in learning new stuff in testing that I could now use in the future. Above everything else it made me realize how many technical mistakes I had made. The benefit is obviously yours if you do it with a good heart and not just for pasting a logo on your resume.

Suppose you have a good experience in one technology or testing or whatever and still no one has asked you to get certified. The obvious benefit of this that you don’t have a hammer on your head to get certified.
However the loss is yours !!! You won’t be able to judge where you stand. You Don’t know what to expect from yourself.

Don’t just get certified just for the sake of it. Do it to improve your skills.
I don’t need a certification to prove that I am a tester. My work will show that. However I need it to show people that I am very capable of being a good tester and ready to learn new things.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Let the Testing begin

Hello and Welcome to my blog.

My name is Anuj Sharma and reside in Faridabad near New Delhi.
I am currently working as a Assistant Software Engineer at Steria India Ltd for the last nine months.In fact this is the first job of my life and also my first attempt at blogging. Through this blog I would like to share my experiences and my views on testing.

Being a fresher, one thing that I am aware of is that every BTech fresher wants a job that would let him code and not test that code. No one even thinks about testing in the college and neither do the college professor give any emphasis on testing.
I wasn't any different, but fate had something else decided for me.

After passing out college, I got a job after two months sitting at home, so I had no option but to take the job of testing. I had made up mind that I would gradually move into development somehow.
However, when my seniors asked me or rather told me to test the application being developed, I somehow started enjoying it. I loved it when I raised the defects !!!!
There was no stopping me and till date I have not stopped and have no plans to stop.

In these nine months, one thing that I have realised is that testing is being undermined in colleges across India.( I don't have the stats to prove it but I think that you will agree with me).
You're reading this post because you have a liking for testing (or I have asked you to )but ask your friends who are still in college or who are not in testing, what they think about testing. The answer would be unanimous, yr testing mein kya rakha hai..paisa kam aur growth bi nai hai yr (What's there in testing...The money is less and there is no growth).This is the answer you would get from almost all the Btech guys out there.(especially in India).

Students should be made aware that testing can be opted a good career option, right in there with development or support. Testing should not just be given to them rather they should be happy to take it.I also code but one thing I have experienced is that breaking the code is much more fun than writing the code.