Okay, I’ll admit it: WordPress has had widgets for a while. I didn’t care much at first, but ever since I upgraded to version 2.7, I’ve been salivating for an excuse to use the new admin interface.

Now I’ve found one: A flashy new theme, with support for widgets.

I’m impressed. Hats off to the WordPress team for the great work.

A recently-made mockup of The Open Planning Project’s website, released only within the company, shows an about page with a sub-heading and description that says we as a company are “driving best practices.” I haven’t made my distaste for this phrase known yet — and by no means is this post an announcement, though I wouldn’t mind if they read it; but I am a bit surprised we use the term. Though some have said it better (well, one at least), here’s my impression of the phrase and how it appears to be used in our context:

1. First, I agree fully with James Bach. Bias aside, best practices are like best friends: You never know when you’ll have a falling out. That’s sad, I know, but since I was little, I never wanted to choose a “best” friend because I thought it devalued the qualities of the other friends I had. Perhaps I’ll choose one when I’m old?
2. Through conversations with coworkers, most on the programming side, there seemed to be this implicit understanding that “best practice” really meant “the best practice we know of right now.” This still doesn’t pass the context argument, but there seems to be an understanding that “best,” here, is not absolute over time… though it sometimes seems to be touted as so. There also seems to be this notion of, “Most bridges are built in way X, and therefore, way X is the best practice.” This might actually hold some weight in the development side of software engineering just as I assume the phrase holds in some contexts within structural engineering — I mean, let’s not forget Tacoma Narrows. But in testing, I’d assume stakeholders’ interests (among other variables) are too fickle and disparate to choose one “best” way of managing them. (I’d love to hear more from structural engineering folks to see how this phrase is used, if at all.)
3. In my company, “best practice” feels like a marketing term. This is one of James’ arguments. If the quality of the software produced is a measure of the practice (this isn’t always the case), I wouldn’t say our practices are “the best.” That said, if there’s truth in advertising, maybe there’s a context — perhaps a geospatial one, an area where TOPP excels — where we really are leading the practice. Does that mean we’re the “best”? I don’t know.

I talked to the CEO of an optics-based software company recently, and he described his product not as the “best” product on the market, but as the best for a certain context — in his case, the high-end precision optics market. Not the low-to-mid end, where software is of lower quality but is much cheaper. I felt his description and use of the term “best” worked because he gave a context, though he was sampling over a single variable, quality, which to each person is fairly subjective — that is, if you subscribe to Jerry’s view, described here.

As humans, though, we seem to place the label “best” by ignoring variables we think are uninteresting, all with the intent of rallying behind a common leader. At one point, the software industry was led by IBM. After that it was Microsoft. Now it’s probably Google. Which is the best, you ask? That’s like asking which is the best car company. Maybe what you’re really asking is, “Which company hasn’t turned into an 800 lb. gorilla?”

I’ve probably belabored the point already, but the word “best,” in my opinion, is simply one person’s perception of the environment in which things exist, sampled at a certain point in time. They choose variables that they’re interested in, explicitly or implicitly, then find a leader amongst those available. What they don’t take into account when assigning their label is the concept of time, or that over time perceptions change. Or maybe they take time into account, but the “best” label simply doesn’t hold as things change. And we all know how fast the software world changes…

But again: The variables they sample over may not have value to others, even if the label holds, for them, over time.

My last analogy, simply because I had to hit home while making a cheap shot at Britney Spears, is that maybe the concept of “best” in “best practice” is just as fickle as “’til death do us part” in 50% of American marriages. Perhaps we assign the term too quickly. Or, maybe, we’re just looking for social status in a world that rewards that sort of thing.

I’m getting some responses (in comments, and email) that paint ofthewolves.com — or at least my description of it — as segregating the community around software testing. Although I could entertain this perspective (Why have two playgrounds?), I get the impression that the young software testing community is underrepresented, and could use a place where information is targeted specifically to — and possibly from — them. This doesn’t mean the whiz kids will go off on their own and create new testing techniques that we won’t share with the older generation; instead, it’s specifically targeted toward sharing our ideas and cultivating information that may be interesting to us — that is, cultivating it because I’m not sure it exists elsewhere. This could be: What to look for in an entry level testing job. What troubles occur transitioning into the software testing workplace. What skills are needed when beginning a career in the testing world. I’m not sure I can answer all these questions from my experience, but I think there’s value in putting them all in one place.

In some sense, this idea is an attempt on my part to find out if there actually is an “us.” My impression of most people in the software testing world is that they were thrown into it unexpectedly, yet have since chosen to make it a career. I rarely see people who have chosen it early on, or have recently graduated and have found it to be their passion. In my experience, I often get confused looks when I tell people I want to be a tester after having such a rich programming background in school. With ofthewolves.com, I not only want to share this experience with the world, but I want tell others teetering on the edge that this decision is okay, that there are others like you and that it is something you can make a career out of. To me, this is recognition, not segregation, and will eventually help the community as a whole.

Now. Behind this dramatic exterior is an implementation that still needs to be crafted. It may be that this blog presents informal case studies of the troubles new testers face. It may be this blog targets information toward nervous graduates who don’t have the testing equivalent of “Programming websites with Rails.” It may be that this blog inspires highly experienced testers to reflect back on their transition and spotlight the things they went through. I’m not sure, at this point, as the idea is still very young. Yet, I think it’s important to get others involved, to see if this idea has any value and to see if something good can come of it.

Lastly, as a more personal interest: I refuse to believe I’m one of the only up-and-coming software testers in my generation. If there are more out there, I want to give them the spotlight as these are the people I’ll be working with in the future.