Bug or Not

I participate in the Weekend Testing session where some passionate testers come together online and decide on an open source application to test. Then each one tests the application for an hour and comes up with a list of bugs, learnings, experiences and a lot of things which cannot be experienced in the office environment.

Last weekend, our mission was to generate testing ideas for the application Converber v 2.1.0. I somewhat deviated from the mission and started testing the application. Though later on I learnt about the term "Testing Idea" which meant "To think about scenarios/environment to test the application". During my Testing, I found a functionality which was very wierd and confusing.

Let me give you a small background about the application before arguing. Converber is an application which converts a given unit to some other unit of one's choice. In this application, there is a functionality viz. If you press "Ctrl+C", the result will be copied to the clipboard. The functionality worked fine except for one scenario which got me confused.

Here's the scenario:
My Left hand side unit is "centimeter" and my Right hand side unit is "decimeter". Now, 10 cm = 1 dm. So I entered 100 cm on the left hand side and got the result as 10 dm on the right hand side. Now I pressed "Ctrl+C" and when I pasted it, I got 10, which is as per the functionality. Now I tried selecting the left hand unit textbox viz. 100 and then pasted onto my editor and got 10. This is as per the functionality of the application but not something a normal user knows.

A normal user knows that if you select a text and press "Ctrl+C" then the selected text will be copied to the clipboard. But in this case, it sticks to the application specific functionality. So is it a "Bug or Not".

Mission: Buying a new rainsuit

So, finally the Rain Gods have blessed Pune for a couple of days and it is pouring out here continuously. I hope it continues for some more days so that the water scarcity problem get solved in Pune.

During the rainy season, the most shopped item has to be the rainywears, which me and two of my friends decided to buy after a day's work. So, we kicked off and hit the shops at Laxmi Road to become proud owners of a brand new rainsuit. I desperately needed one because I have to drive 28 kms. to the office by bike daily and the previous day, by the time I reached home from work, I was fully wet even though I had my rainsuit on. I had to change my innerwears, apply Vicks, get myselves a woollen wear and have a cup of hot coffee before going to bed.

Earlier, I would think "OK, I need to wear the rainsuit for maximum 4 months, so why invest too much." So my budget would be restricted and I used to get a rainsuit that would prevent me from moderate rains, but it would begin to pour, the result would the same that happened the previous day. So, this time around I decided not to compromise on Quality for the cost.

I began to analyze as to what could be the reason for the water entering my clothes and realized that it was through the stitches and the zip of the jacket, that does the damage. Oh! so now that I got the culprit, I decided to find a rainsuit which will prevent water from entering through the stitches and zip. I asked some of my friends about some brands in the rainywears and got an unanimous reply. This got me wandering as to what was it that prevented water from entering through the stitches and zip of a rainsuit manufacturered by this brand. Me and my friends began exploring a few shops where we can find a rainsuit of this brand. Finally, we found a shop where the rainsuit of this brand was available. I was pretty much excited to know about the technique/technology that was employed by this brand to overcome the problem I faced with my previous rainsuit.

The salesboy brought before us two or three varieties. Having singled out one of them based on the quality and price of the rainsuit, I interrogated "The rainwater enters my rainsuit from the stitches and zip of the jacket, so how will this rainsuit prevent this?". The salesboy was prompt to answer: "Sir, the stitches for these rainsuits are taped with plastic from behind and hence prevents the water from entering."

I said "Wow!!! what a fix to a problem I am facing for the last couple of years." Now that the stitches problem was gone, I shot my next question "And what about the zip?". The salesboy was again pretty much prompt to answer "The zip is covered from both the sides using the velcro buttons and thus prevents the water from entering."

"Oh my God!!! How simple was the solution to the problem. But now they have become a million dollar idea" I thought. So finally, I got what I really wanted to prevent me and my clothes (including my innerwears) from getting wet. So now I became a proud owner of this rainsuit. I was so excited that I did not wait long to wear the rainsuit. I immediately had it on and walked out of the shop(Ofcourse after having settled the bill).

It was 9.15 p.m. and I began my long ride back to the pavilion(my home sweet home). It was still pouring in between and I had to travel 35 kms. from the shop to reach home(how boring). So I decided, why not step into the Tester's shoes and test the newly owned rainsuit. I had already checked whether the size fits correctly and the zip is smooth enough and not delicate. I had to drop one of my friends in his flat and decided not to experiment while he was along since he had to manage the laundary all by himselves; whereas I had Mom to take care of it. By the time, we reached his flat the rain had taken a break and I thought maybe the test environment was not available. But I tried to create my own test environment. I would slowdown near a puddle full of water while a vehicle was around and took the splash on the newly owned rainsuit. One after the other, I kept taking the splash. I began with a bike, then a car, and finally a truck. By the time this experiment finished, the test environment was in place. It started raining and I was at the Hinjewadi bridge, the rains kept on intensifying and at one point I felt that it would push me and my bike back. The raindrops hit the rainsuit so hard that I was beginning to feel the pinch through the rainsuit to my clothes onto my body. I tried driving a bit faster considering the fact that there was no vehicle around and I was in full control of my bike. The raindrops came even harder at me and I began to feel the raindrops on my body. I thought, "Well!!! It's the same old story. I need to change my innerwears, apply Vicks, get myselves a woollen wear and have a cup of hot coffee before going to bed."

Finally, I reached home. Now, it was a time to get the test results. I removed the double protection velcro buttons and unzipped the jacket open. My dark blue T-Shirt was as dry as it was in the morning. Now time to check if my pants and the result was the same. And having done that, my newly owned rainsuit is ready for the Pune Rains.