At work, I deal with our QA (it stands for Quality Assurance for the unitiated) group almost daily. When I make changes to any of our search products, I have to give the QA folks the code and then fix any bugs they find before it can go into production.
The QA process is weird. I work with the same two people all the time, and we have a rhythm. If the changes are fairly minor, we work on just that until it’s done. The problem is it’s like playing tennis with a medicine ball. I send the code over, they look at it, do their tests, send me a list of problems, I fix them and the process begins again. When we’re really moving, I can’t work on anything else. It’s hard to switch gears fast enough to remember what line of code does what and where to find the code to fix whatever bug’s been reported. So, I spend a good part of the process trying not to think about anything else. I do a lot of blog surfing, looking for new sites to read. It’s a weird feeling, reading but trying not to get too into it so I can react quickly to the latest list of bugs that could show up at any time.
That’s what I’m doing today. Until my QA-Buddy clears my latest Opus to the Search Gods, I’m writing (which is distracting me) and surfing. Yes, boss, I’m working! I’m QA-ing!! I swear!
