In just a few weeks, I'm running a course with Llewellyn Falco on Brighton "Collaborative Exploratory and Unit Testing". It's a wonderful course, and we've heard a lot of positive remarks on the previous run of it around TestBash New York, so if you are around, you can still join us.
I'm a tester (who finds coding not so interesting and exploring the best thing in the world) and Llewellyn is a developer (who finds coding the best thing in the world and tries to turn anything testing into code), and on the course we test together, in a mob, an application to find insights thru exploration and then turn them into code.
I just received a question I felt was appropriate to answer in public:
"I'm thinking of joining the training you have on March on Collaborative Exploratory and Unit Testing. I was wondering whether I have to attend as a pair with developer or can I attend on my own?"
The course has been set up so that we get the group together to work in a mob. One computer, a mix of people and specialty skills, including the skills that we, the two trainers, bring to the table. The one on the keyboard is not responsible for solving a problem or taking a task forward, but that is the position of resting and listening, when the rest of us give the guidance on what to do.
You can join the group as an individual programmer. It would do good and take your skills more towards what we see on hands-on software architects. Knowing testing makes you a better programmer, and the guidance we have available is very much practical.
You can join the group as an individual tester. In addition to brushing up your exploration, observation and test idea generation skills, you will get a basic feel of things you can do together with developers.
Any mix of testers and developers works for the session at hand, but more variety introduces more opportunities to collaborate with different kinds of people.
We hope to see you in Brighton in just a few weeks.
