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Thoughts on a Test
Mar. 1st, 2023 07:28 pmSo the Alberta government tested out its emergency alert system today. If you're in Alberta you'll already be aware of that. Well fucking aware. It went off eight times in ten minutes.
At first I was bemused then annoyed by this. "ha ha, someone must be leaning on the button!" "Jeebus, was eight tests enough?"
Then I remembered this was a test. The whole point was to see how it worked in the real world. And sometimes tests don't work. Or rather, tests always work, but sometimes they don't succeed in showing you everything works as expected. That's a good test
Maybe they were testing different geographical areas, and discovered that all of the tests went everywhere. That's something you'd want to know and fix in the future. Maybe they were testing different cell phone hardware, or compliance from every service provider? And doing that meant multiple alerts. Like, maybe I got the "all of Alberta" alert, as well as the "all of Calgary", "Samsung devices", and "Koodo network" alerts. All of those would overlap for me. Heck, maybe I got a "Telus network" alert thrown in there for good measure because Koodo is an affiliate. Maybe it just took eight tests, and you getting all of them means there's no holes in their coverage.
Was it irritating? Sure, but in the end it's ten minutes out of your day, and as a computer programmer, I'd rather QA found my bugs then the end user. For something like the alert system, the bugs could mean kids being abducted, or trailer parks not being evacuated before the tornado arrives. That being the case, I'll suck up the alarm.
Then I remembered this was a test. The whole point was to see how it worked in the real world. And sometimes tests don't work. Or rather, tests always work, but sometimes they don't succeed in showing you everything works as expected. That's a good test
Maybe they were testing different geographical areas, and discovered that all of the tests went everywhere. That's something you'd want to know and fix in the future. Maybe they were testing different cell phone hardware, or compliance from every service provider? And doing that meant multiple alerts. Like, maybe I got the "all of Alberta" alert, as well as the "all of Calgary", "Samsung devices", and "Koodo network" alerts. All of those would overlap for me. Heck, maybe I got a "Telus network" alert thrown in there for good measure because Koodo is an affiliate. Maybe it just took eight tests, and you getting all of them means there's no holes in their coverage.
Was it irritating? Sure, but in the end it's ten minutes out of your day, and as a computer programmer, I'd rather QA found my bugs then the end user. For something like the alert system, the bugs could mean kids being abducted, or trailer parks not being evacuated before the tornado arrives. That being the case, I'll suck up the alarm.
