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showing off learned skills
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Date: 2006/11/02 14:56
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By: erkan
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Status: User
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Karma: 3
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Platinum Boarder
| Posts: 98 |  |
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Hi,
today I want to show you an interesting article by:
Holly Bourquin (hbouquin@sqe.com): Stage Fright
from: StickyLetter November 1, 2006
At the end of the summer there was a big story about how Microsoft demoed, in front of hundreds of people, its exciting new voice recognition software; as it turned out the software didn't recognize much of anything.
Here is a video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeC7HpsHxo
News of this spread throughout the tech community like wildfire. "Don't they have testers?" we snickered in break rooms across the country. Back at our desks we gleefully passed the news stories and YouTube video of the Microsoft fumble around the net. This glitch was funny. Like everyone else, I took guilty pleasure in the mishap. After all, it's not just huge, it's Microsoft. When Microsoft makes a mistake (and it makes a few), we smaller guys feel validated and vindicated.
Fast forward to the present day. It's a Sunday afternoon at my house. A few neighbors stop by to meet our newest addition--Buck, a puppy we adopted from a rescue organization. Buck, like his name suggests, is one part dog, one part cowboy, one part redneck, and one part crazy. Buck and I had been working hard on basic commands--sit, down, don't pee in the house, etc. Today was his big debut to my neighbors. As soon as the ooh-ing and ahh-ing over his general puppy cuteness began to fade, I decided it was time to show off Buck's new skills.
With dog biscuits in hand, I commanded Buck to sit, but he had other ideas. Instead, he lunged forward, grabbed a biscuit from my hand, ran wildly around the house, and stopped just beyond my reach to gobble down his unearned treat. This, I assure you, is not remotely close to what we had rehearsed. I, like Microsoft, blame ambient noise as the failure.
After the laughter and jabs about puppy military school died down, I decided to try again. I said, "Buck, Sit!" He sat. "Buck, Lay Down!" Oops, the last command went too far. He lunged again for the treats, but this time I was ready and able to save myself the embarrassment of getting food stolen from my own hand.
Not to be upstaged, Buck took this as a cue to race into my family room and pee on the rug. Much like the presenter of the Microsoft voice recognition software, I found myself laughing along with my audience and saying "I'm glad you're enjoying this!" But I was not enjoying it.
For at least a week, Buck had performed all of his tricks perfectly for me and hadn't had an accident in the house. So, what was this all about?
Buck's antics, while funny, were a tad embarrassing for me.
I recovered, but I had jumped the gun by showing off his "learned" puppy skills. He was too young, it was too soon, and as his behavior indicated, he just wasn't ready for an audience. I wonder, is this what developers feel like when an application won't do something for the tester/user/audience that it did for them? What do you think? Email me and let me know.
Until next time...live well and build better software.
Post edited by: admin, at: 2006/11/04 11:38
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Re:showing off learned skills
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Date: 2006/11/04 11:12
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By: digitalfunda
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Status: User
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Karma: 2
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Senior Boarder
| Posts: 14 |  |
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Good1...post more like this..
~Digital
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Re:showing off learned skills
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Date: 2006/11/04 11:33
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By: admin
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Status: Admin
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Karma: 0
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Admin
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Hi Digital,
will do so.
just added the video, so everybody can also see this 
CU,
Erkan
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