Coders and Testers : Friends or Foes?

As a tester , dealing with coders is inevitable. The sad reality is that the relationship or the link in both communication and understanding between coders and testers have not been so smooth in the recent past. Many research evidences support this reality. However, in my personal life I always some how manage to build a good relationship with coders. Our experience affect how we understand programmers and how, when we work as testers, we work with programmers. In my current work place I enjoy my work as a tester. Let me tell you how I move with coders.

From my experience, the best way to learn how to interact with coders is to become and to work with other coders as our peers for a while. I have a development background. I came to testing after I have written some production code, had it criticized, condemned and praised by testers, users and managers. We, testers and coders work under different conditions. coders focus on their own theory. They have models for how the system components are related, which components are reliable and how errors proper gate. they must work from their mental model. when they tell that a bug we reported cant happen, they are not saying they are infallible. they are saying this type of error doesn't fit with their model and what they believe to be true. we testers better have to focus on observation and evidences. This tests their model.I always Keep clear notes and logs, focus on reports on what I have actually seen and let them find the flaws in their reasoning.

We will be effective if the coders share information with us such as their plans , early drafts, design docs, prototypes, etc.I find out what kind of feed back they want and give it to them. I always offer to assist coders directly. This builds trusts and proves that I am some one they should cooperate with.