Vote Kari for Tester of the Year with the Dragons Out book credits

 Vote for me to be Tester of the Year 2020 in Finland! Publishing the Dragons Out children's book about testing really contributes to the software testing world! : ) I'm honoured! Vote using this form https://link.webropol.com/s/vuodentestaaja2020aanestys - just click my name and "lähetä" in the end!  I truly want to contribute not only to the software testing domain but to a better world. I think software testing is the natural route towards that. Better testing, better quality, better software, better business and society, a better world. Or the other way around, fewer defects in the software, less damage to business, lives and environment.

The whole idea of the Dragons Out book is to raise awareness with children (and adults, too!) that looking for good quality is an outstanding objective in anyone's life, be it a user of a software or part of the software development team. Testing is then part of that search for good quality, trying to influence in removing defects (or defeating dragons in the fantasy language...). Maybe we need to set up a society for good quality? Dragon hunters -  people in search of good quality?

Anyway, getting more awareness for my book project through the Tester of the Year award would again help bring more readers to the book and more users for the free Creative Commons licensed testing presentation.

In the next few months, I'll approach all the readers, and especially the schools who received donated Finnish Dragons Out books with a quick survey asking how the book is used, what kind of people have read it, what parts of the book were most interesting etc. If you have an idea of what I should ask my readers, please drop me a line using the contact form of this web site!

Some news. I've been making plans with my Finnish publisher Avain of where my book will be sold, which conferences to attend, which competitions to participate in. The book will be all over the Finnish book scene and you can all influence how big an effect it will have - tell everyone about it, ask Helsingin Sanomat to write a story about it etc. Or drop me an idea of where to promote the book, or where to send a free evaluation copy. And of course, buy books at Avain.

The English edition is in the works, and I've been in contact with my English publisher Austin Macauley. Things are progressing there, although Covid-19 seems to influence everything. We'll have the English book out soon enough though, not to worry. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amazing feedback and school visits

Image
 I recently got some  amazing feedback  from a 9-year-old reader through his dad. The Dragons Out book was an exciting Christmas present that the boy started reading on his own. He did the exercises at the end of the chapters and was really thrilled about them ("I did all of those great exercises!"). Upon asking why the book was so thrilling, he answered, "It was a great book because it had true things and fantasy side by side, and the exercises were fun!". It feels so good to hear such feedback - keep it coming! The unique approach of fantasy coupled with testing works. Remember my school visits, earlier? It is  again time to have school visits in Finland , too. It is especially nice now that face-to-face meetings are possible, and I don't need to access the school class virtually over a Teams meeting. That works too, yes, with a teacher facilitating in the class, but it is so much nicer and more concrete to meet and teach children face-to-face. I asked for som...
Read more

Article in Dimensio-magazine

I recently had a chance to write in the magazine of math teachers. Mathematics is one of the natural stepping stones towards software development and software testing. The association of math teachers (MAOL) has been interested in cooperation with me. They considered software testing to be an interesting angle for anyone interested in mathematics. I wrote about my book writing project and how software testing can be taught to children via a fantasy book. The article is in Finnish here: https://www.dimensiolehti.fi/opetetaan-lapsille-ohjelmistotestausta-fantasiakirjan-avulla/
Read more

AI creating Dragons and testing stories

Image
In recent times, it seems like the whole world has gone crazy trying to use Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence). These LLMs (large language models) can create content based on user prompts.  Now I tried the LLM Brave Leo (Mixtral) to create a Dragons Out -like story for me. Although it was just experimental, the results are quite impressive. I used just three prompts. Finally, I tried to get a picture of all this - a fourth prompt. It didn't work, but I got a description, which I used in a prompt of a picture generation AI, Deep AI.  Did you learn something from the below? I think an LLM can help with quality like this. But the picture was quite disappointing to me. Anyway, I think I'll write my own stuff also in the future and ask Adri for more fantastic illustrations. Me: What is RPG? Brave Leo: RPG stands for "Role-Playing Game." It is a type of game where players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting and engage in activities to develop their ch...
Read more