On Learning and Enlightenment and Software Testing

This has been a remarkable week for me.

Over the weekend, I finished the "Lesson" portion of the Black Box Software Testing Foundations course from the Association for Software Testing.  I wrote the exam Monday night.  I'm not sure how to describe this experience.  It was a massively intense (as opposed to mildly intense?)  experience where there was a lot of information poured out.  On top of that, the conversations in discussion forums around the lessons, quizes and whatnot tended to sometimes take on a life of their own.  All in all I found myself in an intense learning experience where ideas did not so much flow as rush at you.  (My lady-wife compares this to trying to drink from a firehose.) 

I can safely say that there was more information about testing that came at me over the course of this class than I can remember having in some time.  Invigorating does not begin to describe it. 

So, as I'm catching up on other things, and decompressing from the experience, and dealing with work stuff and trying to keep up with that.  I come across tweets about the EuroStar Testing Time Out. Then I realize that the first time out speaker is Lynn McKee!  I've mentioned Lynn more than once in blog posts.  She is really good and takes a fresh look on things.  THEN, I see she has a blog post on the experience.  Way Cool!

Then today I was working with the boss on polishing the presentation we're doing together at STPCon.  She asked me what I thought I could apply from the class right now.  I began listing off ideas where some of the concepts from BBST could be applied right then.  There were others where some of the ideas would take a bit of work to explain, then maybe experiment with,  They may have to wait a bit (we are pressed for time right now.) 

This evening I looked at what was coming up and got all excited all over again.  CAST is coming up in August. The main track sessions look amazing.  I'm excited about the emerging topics track.  There have been some interesting proposals submitted already. (We set some up as examples - and several people have submitted really good, interesting ideas.)  If you have something you're passionate about, and are going to CAST, why not try your hand on an idea that you're passionate about?  More information is here. 

So, yeah, the more I learn, the more things I find interesting and the more I realize I want to know.  Amazing, isn't it?