Mambo Developer

QA - the most important "uncool" job around 

Written by: Ozgur Cem Sen, former Team Leader, Quality Assurance & Release Team.

From a software developer’s perspective QA is the most boring and unnecessary part of software development. "How dare someone check my state-of-art code and tell me that it is not working? Tsk tsk tsk…" I cannot name one software developer, who never said that. I have known many, plus I am still one of them – been there, still doing it.

In this article, I will be sharing some of my observations on what’s going on with the QA in the large scale Free Open Source Software projects and what we do here at Mambo about this "boring" thing called QA.

Let’s start with the evolution of a big Open Source project. It’s all the trivial stuff; idea is born, a couple of buddies start developing it, initial release goes out, some need is fulfilled, more people start using it, some patches and the second release comes out, couple of other developers join, the community grows, 3^rd party folks start making money off the project, new releases come out with more features, more and more people start using the projects, some corporate money flows in, the original developers are the Gods of the source, power struggles start, project forks, some of the key developers quit and start over etc etc etc… Did I mention QA? Not yet. Indeed, I probably cannot, because it was never a part of all that happened above.

The Free Open Source World is a very strange place. Since there is no money involved – in most cases – almost everything is driven by commitment. Therefore the human emotion becomes the dominant driver for the projects. I would rate the "cool" factor as the top rated emotion. If you are a core development team member, you are cool. Now, the rest of the community, millions of other users of your project must bow in front of you, just because you can commit code. Sweet isn’t it. If you’re writing up documentation, you are not cool. If you are translating, you are not cool. If you are testing it you are not cool. Unless you commit code, you are not cool. This must be the main reason that QA teams of big Open Source projects are like deserted islands.

Once the software hits the wires for download, the "cool" does not mean a thing. Quality does. That's why, the QA & Release Team at Mambo is in the process of implementing  better testing and release processes on top of manual testing, in order to avoid "oops, how did I miss that!!!" situations.

Our new QA & Release process is defined with this catchy-phrase – Mambo 4x4 Testing.

Mambo 4x4 Testing is:

• Selenium Based
• Ant Driven
• Maven Controlled
• Cruise Control Powered

This new process will allow us to continuously test our software under different environments and conditions. I have to admit, writing the test scenarios is "boring", nevertheless I am self assured that the end result will be thrilling.

Mambo Open Source CMS has already hit the "widely accepted" threshold. We are all very well aware of the fact that being a part of this project is not about being "cool" anymore. It is about being responsible and being able to release an excellent product to our user base and prospective users. This is our responsibility and pledge.

If you are interested in being part of this important function in the development cycle of the Mambo CMS, please make yourself known to the Team on the Mambo forums.  QA is vital to Mambo and we would appreciate having more skilled people on board to assist with ensuring our code meets the highest standards.