UAT a love hate relationship

Today my post is going to be short, because I'm trying to get through some UAT testing. This is a really important part of the project, but it is tedious.

UAT stands for user acceptance testing. It is the last step before code is pushed to production. What this means is you get to see all the new stuff before it comes out. You get to play with it, because it is in a separate environment. It should be fun, but there are strings attached.

When you do UAT you need to document everything, even before you go in you need to document scenarios, while you are testing scenarios you need to document, when you finish a scenario you need to document. Then, if it passes you need forest different variations, but it is not as bad as if it fails. If it fails you need todo all that, but you also need to try workarounds, see if it is a show stopper, etc. The problem is not the doing, it's the tedious documentation of everything you are doing.

As I think about it, many jobs work this way. The doing is fun, but the paperwork is not. Do you have one? What is it?

Now for me, back to work.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Minecraft 1.8

Notch has done it again.

Earlier this week, this new release, "The Adventure Patch", came out and it has ignited my imagination all over again. This world of randomly generating terrain and randomly spawning creatures is strangely now begging for lore.

When the server came up I spawned on top of a tree, which was a little weird, but I was in the canopy of a dense forest. A little ways away I could see a small clearing. The clearing had a couple pools of lava. The setting was amazing. The edge of the forest ended on one side with an ocean, with islands way off in the distance. On the other side the forest thinned and became a vast desert.

Steve, Amy and I started a mine and then a lighthouse near the lava pools. This became our early safe house. We needed food, with the new hunger system, so we started a farm, which had to be pretty to support us.

Then night came. I saw my first Enderman. The creature was about 4 meters tall, jet black with large eyes. It walked slowly on spidery long limbs. It tore the trunk out of one of the nearby trees, carrying the chunk of wood for a while. It then put it down and used it to climb to a higher place. I will not be walking around at night if I can help it.

Once we were settled it became time to explore. Just off the desert was a deep hole with a cave in the bottom. After climbing down there I found a huge cave system, but that is not all. I wasn't the first one there. In the bowels of the earth were the ruins of an ancient people, now taken over be zombies and poisonous spiders. I couldn't explore it all, but I did explore enough to find a chest with a diamond and some gold. It was several levels, but I didn't time to see more than one.

Now, I sit here at work unable to focus. There are new vistas to explore. I can't wait to get back.

The Clockwork Man

The world looks different to the clockwork man as he peers from his place by the sea. He can hear the buzzing of his gears and the thumping of his pistons over the sound of the surf. The sand outside dials into focus through telescopic eyes. He can't smell the salt and fish in the air. His skin has worn away exposing the steel and wiring once underneath. The silver plates of his chest are riveted over the remaining heart of flesh, trapped where it can't be seen or heard. The clockwork man is wound, but still.

He remembered a time when his arms were made of flesh. Wrapped with nerves and feeling. A time before the choice. When his lips could hold the skin of an apple and his teeth were not a grinding machine. Before the pain he had a name, but that was long ago. Now he is just the clockwork man. A contraption. A toy. A memorial.

The pain had come first to his hands. It burned like invisible fire. It felt like it was consuming him, but left the meat to flare again. A hot brand he couldn't release. Pain like that should be hard to forget, but the numb digits the doctors gave him as replacements cooled his memory.

The clockwork man opened the intricate replacement he'd had since then and tried to remember. He felt nothing but loss.

It had been the skin of his cheeks and then his whole face that came next. The same staggeringly painful embers held to him, but this time blinding him with white hot heat. The choice was easier this time. He sacrificed his flesh to loose the pain. His eyes were sharper, but they seemed to miss more subtle things. At least the pain was gone.

After that it was a succession of creeping pain and replacement surgeries. The price had been paid to free himself from the pain. He became the clockwork man.

The story of his transformation ticked through his processor as he watched the tide pull back revealing her gifts. Sticks and shells, seaweed and foam colored the beige coast. A couple walked together from the hotel next door. They laughed and hugged and held hands. They're missing some of the best shells, he thought, and they are inefficient with their stride. They could be improved so much. The clockwork man kept watching and judging these people of flesh. He considered the servos and armor he would use to better the couple.

It was then, with one awkward misstep, the girl stepped on a razor edge of coral. Instantly she crumpled and grasped he injured foot. With a whirring, the clockwork man rose to his feet, ready to act. The ticking and buzzing echoed off the glass he had been watching through.

The boy of flesh knelt beside the girl, who now had some blood on her hands. He looked at her foot. "How could he help?" thought the clockwork man, "He'll fail without the right parts." Then, not even knowing he was being watched from behind glass, the boy kissed the injured girl's forehead and lifted her from the sand. He wasn't much bigger then her. He struggled with the weight and his feet sank deeper into the sand. Slowly, Step by step, without any assistance, he carried the girl to help.

The clockwork man stayed standing for a long time. He zoomed in on the speckles of blood drying on the beach, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The idea of replacement parts for the couple seemed silly to him now. There was something to them, a subtlety he'd missed, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. They weren't perfect, but he couldn't imagine how he could make them any better.

The clockwork man returned to his chair. His buzzing and ticking quieted. He could hear an unfamiliar thumping getting louder. For the first time, in a long time, he could hear his heart beat.

Reading Again

For a long time my reading was reduced to a few gaming magazine articles, Bible study and Internet news. Virtually no fiction. Much of my life I wanted to make a living telling stories, so this is a weird place to be. I'm not sure how I got here.

All through school and up through college I was a pretty active reader. I would not be uncommon for me to have the latest Stephen King in hand and have a Spider Robinson waiting to be started. This was my filler through the day and my relaxation time at night. I loved reading and how it fired your imagination. It filled this place in my life.

Then it was gone. The books I had, had been read. I went from being reader, to having been a reader. I didn't really miss it.

Two things changed all that. The first is my daughters have been eating up the Percy Jackson series of books and it became clear that in order to talk to them about them, I would need to read them. Good books, by the way, fairly easy reads with characters you care about and a decent story. This did in fact become a bridge for us. Secondly, I've been trying to write more, and it has really been drilled home that if you want to grow as a writer, you need to read other writer's writing. This let's you see how they fold words together, paint images and fill the white with entertaining word. I am a reader again.

Today, though, I am struck by a thought. Why did I not miss this? How is it I don't even remember how this changed? It seems so much of who I am again, it is hard to reconcile that gap. Additionally, does this mean there may be other things I stopped doing that would greatly enjoy if I went back to them? What are they? If my mind can hide things I love from me, how will I ever find them?

Am I the only one with this experience? I would love to hear if any of you have rediscovered a lost love, or think you know why we just stop doing things sometimes. Lastly, if you have any book recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Jaded

I love shows like Scare Tactics. When the radioactive rat-man scurries out of the hole of the abandoned lab and the effeminate man let's loose a scream, I laugh. Hard. There is something about the psychological torture they put the victims through that is bottled joy to me.

I am concerned, though. We living a society that is ever more jaded and harder to fool. If you doubt me, go back and watch a show you used to love. I tried The Incredible Hulk, the one from the 80's. Remember how sweet and terrifying those transitions to a green beast were? Well, keep those in your memory cause if you go back and watch them, you will be wrecked.

There is a part of me that thinks, how did you watch this? How did you think this was good? You have no taste. But there as another, louder part of me that screams like the newly formed Vader. Noooooooooooo! Because this may be the end of shows like Scare Tactics. No more joy.

I see a future where the van lurches to a stop just as the Vampire bikers catch up to the girls on a lonely stretch of road and rather then them clinging to each other prepared to meet certain death, they hop out and say "Really?". The innocence, terror and joy all gone.

This is not the fault of TV and movies. It is the fault of us and our desire to have ever more real entertainment so we don't need to suspend our disbelieve.

So, if just for me, please stop being jaded. Overlook bad make-up and believe in alien's with big green heads just a little bit longer. Thank you.

Zero Event

Today, I was listening to one of those This American Life episodes that just fires my imagination. It was called Game. The reason it really got to me was this section on "the Book". "The Book" is what is known, so you know how to take the best possible action, or so you know what the expected outcome will be. Some complete games fit into "The Book" like tic-tac-toe or checkers, meaning you can play game after game perfectly, never leaving the known. Other games are so big with so much variation that the complete game will never be in "The Book". This mean the game will start in "the book" and probably stay there for the first few turns, you know every response has a set response, but at some point it leaves "The Book".

This is the moment we wait for.

They called it I think a zero event. I imagine it like that moment when a spaceship is struggling against the gravity of the planet, it is trying to escape, always in the verge of losing power and dropping back, then it is free the bonds shaken off and all of space is available.

The events engage our brains, makes us tingle, make us see a world with fresh eyes. Suddenly, outside of the book, we want to know what will happen next, what can happen next. We are explorers or inventors.

Zero event isn't really about leaving "The Book". More importantly, it is about the ability to write you own book once you are out there.

I'm not telling you to break all the rules. I'm also not telling you that you get to decide right from wrong. What I am telling you is this, you live a life of patterns, which causes you to add bunches of silly rules into your life, things that may have made sense at the time, but are now just holding you back. Play with them. Remove or change the restrictions you have put on yourself and see how it works out. Give up something you don't need. Add a hobby you always wanted to try. Read a book you said you wouldn't. Be the first to apologize.

See what happens what you awaken your mind with change.

My challenge is this, leave the book and start writing your own. You might make some mistakes, but you will be alive in a way you have missed.

Found Thing

When I step into the heat of my garage, I can't help but let corners of my mouth pull into a smile. Maybe a smirk. I tell my wife that we need get everything out the the garage. And the basement. And the rooms. And the junk drawer. In short, we have too much junk. And, while that is true, there is an advantage to having boxes in the garage.

To understand this, it might help know about a few things I have at arms length as I sit at my desk. I have an English to German dictionary. It is from my college days. It brings back the work I had to do for what would be my toughest classes, but it is not nearly as useful as the information you can find on-line. I also have a 2nd edition Dungeon Master's Guide, which was my chief source of entertainment all through high school. I don't need it anymore, but it reminds me of weekends on Sill's floor with half a dozen or more of my friends weaving stories of dragons and vampires. The nostalgia on these things is a treasure, but I don't know what to do with the items themselves. I don't want to get rid of them, but I can't figure out how to make them useful.

The boxes in the garage fuel my mind with hopes of a new object a new dose of nostalgia. Additionally, you have the quest, the act of working toward a find. The one thing better than finding, is looking. I love the quest. Every box is a quest waiting to happen. Sometimes you get a dictionary or a roleplaying book, but most of the time you just get the quest.

The little quirk of mine has lead me to some interesting places, with some interesting finds. The most interesting for me, my favorite quests are people finding. I do this for a hobby as often as I can. I love the research the moves, the court records, every clue to narrow down where someone has made it to. If a book is laced with nostalgia, that a person is like the straight shot. They can fill in all the gaps, they can talk about the things they remember. It is almost perfect.

I have loved the searches for people lost in the fog of time. It's like I have recovered a little bit of myself. From the girl who lived across the street in elementary school, to the high school friend who got lost after a rough couple years. When you get them, you want to hold on, want to pick up where you left off, you want the joy you remember.

It never works exactly that way, though. At some point you realize the person looking, isn't the person who lost them. I didn't stop changing when circumstances took them out of my life. They aren't they same people either. The taste is bittersweet.

What to do then? What do you do once you have found this person you have spent days or weeks looking for? Now you sit staring at an e-mail written by a stranger, to a stranger with only old history binding them together. The desire for something, but the realization that it is too far gone puts a lump in my throat.

It may be foolish, but I like being able to reach over and touch the books I have no use for anymore. I can flip through the pages and let the memories wash over me. That is enough.