Question

I was thinking about writing this as a highly subjective blog post but (a) didn't want to seem presumptuous in knowing the answers, (b) realized I'm more interested in what others think than what I think about this topic. I'd start with what I'm sure is an incomplete list:

1) Broader use of open-source testing tools (like Selenium and FitNesse)

2) Increased use of offshore testing resources

3) Greater awareness and recognition of the benefits of Exploratory Testing methods (and broader adoption of Exploratory Testing methods)

4) Increased collaboration between testers (through sites like this, Software Testing Club, SQA Forums, Twitter and software testing listserves)

5) Increased quantity and quality of blogging by testing practitioners (and a resulting shift in where testers are turning to for expertise and professional development)

6) Broader use of Software-as-a-Service testing tools (like my firm's Hexawise test design tool and Angry Amoeba's tails tool for bug tracking)

7) Expansion of innovative new business models for getting testing done, e.g., crowd-sourced testing ala uTest and performance testing on demand ala LoadStorm.

Others? By definition, I've missed at least 3 and I'm sure some made my list that wouldn't have made yours. Please contribute your own as a separate entry below and/or let me know where you agree / disagree with items in my list in the comment section below this post.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. I look forward to seeing what other things people come up with.

Justin

Answer 1

I can think of a couple:

The recognition that testing is a profession and not just a role for developers who are not very good at programming.

The closer working relationships between testers and developers

What about some of the worst testing developments of the decade?

Hmmmm - I can think of a few

Professional qualifications based upon multi-choice questions! Using Agile to do no unit tests! Pretending to do exploratory testing when you are really just doing ad-hoc testing,

Answer 2

The question asks about the most important developments... Not the best or the worst.
I'll try to answer here with considerations by me and others I found on the net. Not everybody will agree with all -- even I don't agree with all :) -- but my approach here is more of a reporter than a judge.

1. Blogs were the most important testing development, at least for me. :)
   It helps me grow my testing philosophy. It helps by being a quick and instrumental medium to quality discussions. Following the great authors as they write is a grea experience.
   One great thing about blogs, is that they allow us see the flow of ideas as they are being built upon -- instead of simply receiving the ideas later, in book, as was the custom 10 years earlier.
   • Tweeting, forums, and other collaboration platforms of Web2.0 are cool too, but I believe their impact to be smaller.
   • Blogging also allows a simple guy like me to share his Testing Thoughts.

Other points:

1. The Context-Driven School gathered momentum with this name, and became well known. I couldn't find tracks on the full history of the context-driven school, but the earliest mentions to it I found are from the very late nineties.
   1. I don't mean to say that it started on this decade. I can see that the work of the context-driven people was context-driven for the last 50 years :), and all had always seek excellency. It is not new from the 2000's, but it looks like the movement got a name -- and exposure as a movement -- only in the last 10 years.
2. Certifications gathered momentum too. Without entering in the good/bad discussion, it is a major movement that had a lot of action in the past 10 years.
   1. The ISTQB was founded in 2002, and is a popular certification.
   2. The ISEB was doing certifications before (so this too, isn't entirely a new thing), but all got much more impetu.

3. "Greater awareness and recognition of the benefits" not only of Exploratory Testing, but of testing, and testing as a career in general.

4. Michael Bolton not only started consulting in the testing arena, but also writing and publishing. His essays about testing and checking are very cool, and Jon Bach considered it "one of the most (in)famous and important posts to come along in our industry in a long time".

For the next 10 years...

1. The weekend testing meetings in India were highly praised by James, Michael and Pradeep on twitter. Seems like they believe it will make an impact on testing in the next years.
2. Testing.StackExchange appeared too late in 2009. But... will it appear in the 2020 list? :) I hope yes.

Answer 3

Great question Justin!

When I read the title I had a couple of topics in mind and there they were #4 & #5 on your list!

I really think the increased use of "social" sites/forums is a great "low-entry" meeting place for testers of all backgrounds and levels of experience. (They are such great enablers and usually levellers.)

If you can't make it to a conference you can still interact with people that would be there (or were there), read about there experiences and even ask questions and maybe see some of the presentations - whether this is via a discussion forum or just pinging someone on twitter!

Blogs are a great resource too - true, you get the whole range of good/bad/ugly writing but there are gems to be found there, and again you can interact with the author via comments. At it's best blogs (to me) are a forum for discussion.

I only got involved in blogs and discussion forums after many years as a tester (getting along very well without them!) and I've found it enriching!

I hope that the 3 topics that you've missed are the same as the 3 I've missed (although we'll never know... :))

Update: Shmuel had a point about the "most important" developments as opposed to the "best". I'll clarfy that my points above were my "best" and "most important" developments to me.

Context, context, context ;-)