Over the past few weeks, I have been working with James Bach on my BCRIT certification. Through that process, I have identified my use of heuristics as a good area for potential growth, and so I try to spend some time each day actively thinking about this. For those not familiar, a heuristic is a key word or phrase that encapsulates some larger idea, and triggers you to apply some strategy or behavior in your testing. You try to pick heuristics that will be easy for you to remember, something personal or interesting. Something amusing is always a good choice, James’ “Dead Bee” heuristic being a good example.So over the same time period, my daughter Sarah and I have been doing some reading and study of satire, and it’s use in comics and cartoons. We have looked at the work of Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Chas Addams (The Addams Family), and their use of animals and human caricatures to point out incongruent behavior in society. So the other day, Sarah brings the Sunday funnies to show me this cartoon. (The cartoon was Pearls Before Swine, I don’t know the authors name, and the panel ran several weeks ago. That is about the best I can do for giving proper credit) The cartoon depicted two kids discussing Ol’ Yeller, one who had seen it several times telling the other who had never heard of it what it was all about, and that it was showing at the local theatre. After hearing the story of how the young boy eventually has to put his own dog down, he says “Wow, I bet everyone in the theatre was bawlin about that”, to which his friend replies “Yeah, what other reaction could you possibly have?”

The last panel in the cartoon was the inside of the theatre, with everyone sitting around crying and sniffling…everyone, that is, except the two alligators in the middle of the theatre, who were jumping up and down cheering and yelling “Eat Da Dog!! Eat Da Dog!!” (We have two dogs, two cats, a snake, several fish, and a collection of horses we are part owner of on any given day, so please, no emails about what an animal hater I must be)

The alligators’ behavior is completely inappropriate…unless, of course, you’re an alligator. Because what is appropriate and inappropriate is very relevant to context. And sometimes, forcibly changing our context and perspective can help us discover things we did not see before. So the next time I am faced with a challenging testing problem, and I can’t see a solution, I am going to think to myself, “How can I eat dis dog?”

Now THAT’S an interesting heuristic!

Sincerely,
David