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QA Clichés

Common Sayings in QA

cliche
Some common Football cliches.

In the many years of my software testing, there are several clichés or commonly repeated phrases that testers, developers, and project managers might say during meetings:

  • "It works on my machine." - Often said by developers when a bug can't be reproduced in their local environment.

  • "That's not a bug, it's a feature." - A humorous or sometimes serious claim that unintended behavior might actually provide some value or was intended all along.

  • "Have you tried testing using incognito mode?" - Often highlights issues related to session management, caching, or initialization.

  • "Works as designed." - This can be a genuine clarification or a way to push back on a bug report when the software is behaving according to the specifications, even if those specifications might now seem flawed.

  • "It's not reproducible." - When testers or users report an issue that can't be consistently replicated, leading to challenges in debugging.

  • "We need more test cases." - Often said when unexpected issues arise, suggesting that the existing test suite might not be comprehensive enough.

  • "Let's take this offline." - Not unique to QA but commonly used when a bug or issue leads to a discussion that's too detailed or tangential for the current meeting.

  • "Did we test for this scenario?" - A question that arises when an unforeseen issue comes up, questioning the coverage of the test cases.

  • "The user would never do that." - A sometimes risky assumption about how the software will be used, which might overlook edge cases or unexpected user behavior.

  • "How quickly can you test this?" - Suggesting that QA engineers can speed up testing without impacting the quality of the test.

  • "This should be an easy fix." - Often underestimated, what seems simple might involve complex underlying code changes.

  • "We'll fix it in the next sprint/release." - When time runs out, or when a bug is deemed not critical enough for immediate action.

  • "Automate all the things!" - While automation in QA is crucial, this phrase humorously points to the sometimes overly enthusiastic push for automation without considering the ROI.

  • "It passed in staging, why is it failing in production?" - Highlighting environment-specific issues or differences in data sets.

  • "QA found another 'corner case'." - Recognizing that QA teams often find bugs in the most unexpected or rarely used functionalities.

Q A Cliche

These clichés reflect the ongoing dialogue between intention, design, implementation, and real-world use in software development. They encapsulate the challenges, humor, and sometimes the frustrations inherent in the QA process.

Next Week's blog post is about scary sayings heard in QA.

 

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Weekly Tips and tricks for Quality Assurance engineers and managers. All reviews are unbiased and are based on personal use. No money or services were exchanged for the reviews posted.

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