Peer Review Tool

Last year I wrote a blog about Peer Reviews where I noted all the good peer reviews can do...as long as you do them. I believe that, when done properly, they can catch a lot of problems due to a "second pair of eyes" looking at the code. It also gets others at least sort of familiar with your code. That way, if you get hit by a beer truck, it's easier for someone else to pick up the code.

A peer review tool is an essential part of a groups set of tools. While you can keep track of defects on a piece of paper or in a document file, a peer review tool tends to work much better. On that note, SmartBear software has a peer review tool called CodeReviewer.

CodeReviewer - a simpler CodeCollaborator

SmartBear has a code reviewer sale going on, 5 seats of CodeReviewer for $5, follow the link to read more about it.

Yeah, this is sort of an ad, but lines up with my thoughts and beliefs on code reviews, so I'm putting it out there.

May your defects be trivial and you code be solid!

Thankful for Family, NI, and Sarcasm

It's the season to be thankful. So in the spirit of the season I want to say what I'm thankful for.

First, of course, I'm want to thank God for all my blessings. Next, I want to thank my family. My Mom and Dad for giving me a good foundation and work ethic and encouraging me to go to collage in spite of their very limited education. I'm thankful for my kids for keeping me grounded through a bunch of tough years and for putting up with me and my warped sense of humor the rest of the time. And I'm even thankful for my hard driving have-to-be-right brother and sweet sister.

I'm Thankful for my really good friends who helped me get past my shyness, helping with my introversion, and helping me get through my tough years. They are fun to hang out with when I don't have a date. In other words, we always hang out.

I'm also thankful to National Instruments for making it easy to do my job. LabWindows CVI is a great tool for Test Engineers and makes it easy to develop code for test sets and for easy to use hardware. I'm also thankful for all the helpful people I've met and worked with there at NI like Joel, Wendy, Santiago, and Conan. I especially thankful for NI Week and the Wednesday night party they throw, maybe happy they do it than actually "thankful". And, yes, I'm even thankful for LabVIEW, it's a good language and most likely a piece of the future of software.

I'm also thankful to both of the Directors I work for, especially JT. They believe in me and know that I'll work hard to do a good job for both of them.

[Start Sarcastic Voice]
I'm also thankful for the boss who said I couldn't follow a process. Now that I've helped deveop our companies processes and reach CMMI level 5, you proved how well you know people. To the same boss who said I would never work in software at our company again. She was right, I'm not in the software group, I'm Test Engineering doing much more and fun software.

I'm thankful to Electrical Engineers. Since most of you guys don't think I can tell the difference between a resistor and an FPGA, you make it very easy to impress you. Especially, to they lead EE guys who couldn't find the problem between the IMU and GPU on LOSAT. You made it easy for "Just a software guy" to find the 25ns glitch that was reseting the IMU with just a schematic and an OScope.

I'm also thankful to the boss who believes that software is just a passing fad. You make everyone else seem so much smarter.

I'm also thankful to the place I work. [insert almost any sarcastic comment from Dilbert and it applies. I'm pretty sure he works where I work]

[End Sarcastic Voice]

The reality of it is I have a lot to be thankful for and I know that I am truly blessed.

Thank you

Misunderstood

I've found that the Test Engineering group is misunderstood, at least where I work. Most of the engineering groups have an identity. The Electrical Engineering group builds the hardware, the Mechanical Engineers builds the moving parts, Software Engineers write the software to control the hardware, and the Systems Engineers glue it all together.

It seems what Test Engineering does is a mystery to the other groups. We are called in late in projects because Project Managers don't know why they need us until they realize they need to make more than one widget (or whatever it is they're making). Then they realize their widget (or whatever it is they're building) was designed in a way that makes it incredibly hard to test.

It's too late but that's when they figure out they needed us to begin with.

We're trying to educate the programs on what we can do for them. We can do is:
- We do hardware and we do software.
- We develop systems (Test Systems)
- We can help them design their widget so it can be tested.
- We can make their tests automatic and repeatable.
- We can help with developmental testing
- We can make sure the widget is built correctly
- We can test your system in the field or on the production line

...Bottom line is we can help.

LabVIEW...

I have been making a concerted effort to use LabVIEW lately, trying to learn the "Graphical" way of programing. Due to Carpel Tunnel Syndrome I use my left hand to mouse a lot. I've tried the, so called, "Keyboard" shortcuts ("Keyboard" as defined by NI), but since they still involve the mouse, they aren't as helpful as I need them to be.

But continuing to work with the pain, my left hand is just not as dexterous as my right. It's hard to hit the small wire Connections. It's annoying trying to figure out which vi to use for what functions.

Some of the features that would be VERY helpful to get us LabVIEW handicapped people working in LabVIEW is:
- a zoom feature. I could make a vi bigger and actually hit the terminal.
- Or have it where, when I miss hitting a terminal, I can use tab or shift tab to move the connection from the current terminal to the next or previous terminal.
- Have LabVIEW be able to select the end of a wire and then drag it around using the arrow keys instead of the mouse.
- Have the pallet navigable with the arrow and tab keys. Make it where you can select the pallet, then with the arrow and tab keys move about in the pallets to the vi you want. From there, be able to select it and drag and drop with the arrow keys.

Have the LabVIEW developers ever heard about Test Driven Development (TDD) or automated Builds? Here's some more features.
- For automatic builds, have VI's able to be Compiled (or whatever happens to them) from the command line and verified none of them are broken (with the broken arrow for the run button)
- For Test Driven Development, have an automated test frame work. Frame works similar to the NUnit test development suite.

One more suggestion...have a cheaper copy for use by anyone. MS have copies of things like Visual Studio C++ for $100 or so at computer stores.

It's still easier to think in C (LabWindows CVI) than it is in LabView and until I can develop LabVIEW as I can develop C code, I'm sure I'll still be using CVI. But I will always keep trying to learn new stuff.

Now as soon as NI comes up comes up with telepathic programming interface, I'll be there!

OK, Now that we know the Super Intelligent Shades of the Color Green are going to take over the world, lets get on with less important things... like testing.

I've been working on processes and metrics for developing test sets for quite a while now (a couple of years). I love doing technical work so it has been tough doing mainly documentation. I have worked on some test programs part time while working on the processes, so it hasn't been totally tortuous.

I believe there is always a process of one type or another in developing test stations. The problem is some times the process is the POOMA (Pull Out Of My A**) process or maybe the "wing it" process. But then there's the other end of the process universe. This is where the process makes it nearly impossible to do a small project. Then, in the middle, there's the agile process which is suppose to be the processes that allow tasks to be done quickly and with the ability to easily adapt to changes. It's still not a cure all.

Even people who say they have no process, have a process, it's just not as straight forward as most or even seems coherent.

After working on the processes for a while I know that one process does not fit all projects even though that's what we try to do. I was suppose to document the process we go through to build test stations. Each project has been unique in it's own way, with some process steps that aren't in the process and skipping other steps that are in the process. Some projects that try to follow the process finds that outside groups don't follow the process which makes our process fail. There's many reason's process fail.

If the processes aren't working (not that people just don't want to do it), they need to be adjusted , in real-time rather than going through the year long process change process.

The project leads, the one's actually have to make the process happen, have to be the ones to adjust the process as needed. They need the lead way to adjust it as needed. The Process police also need to understand a single written process is not a panacea, it won't cure all. The processes need to be adjusted.

While I've been working on the processes, this is the dilemma I've been dealing with, having processes that don't imped getting things done but satisfies the Process Police.

Great Engineers

I've written blogs on how people are the most important tool and I've written on what test people need to know. But as I watch various engineers, not jsut test engineers, there are some who do better than the rest. And some who seem to have potential but can't quite have it all together. I was thinking about some of the characteristics of great engineers (Test or otherwise). Here's what I think.

Great Engineers...

...know what they are doing, they have a reason for doing what they do and they know why things are happening like they are.

...don't believe things "Just Happen" (corollary to the above) They don't feel comfortable with just using instrument, specific electronics, API's or algorithms. They need to know how they really work.

...understand their business and their customers. Great Engineers know what matters for their customers and their business. They can make trade offs that make the most business sense and for their customer.

...put customers and their team first. No task is below a great engineer and no customer is unimportant.

...have the highest integrity and ethics. They care about how they accomplish their tasks. Great engineers care about their team and their customers and keep integraty and ethics in all of their dealings.

...have excellent people skills and communications skills. Great Engineers work well with others, respect others, and communicate clearly and effectively.

...have a wide support network. Great Engineers have contacts and a network to support them and to allow the engineer to be far more effective and become a great engineer.

There are many other aspects like quality, focus, and design skills but I have to stop typing somewhere.

These soft skills differentiate the great engineers from good engineers. I know I have short coming in some of these area's but I also know I am always trying to improve and hopefully become a Great Engineer.

"Know me for who I am, Revere me for how I got here" - Qwezzen

I'm going to NI Week!!

The company I work for has decided to allow me to go to NI-Week. My boss said that anyone who goes will have to give a presentation on "What I learned at NI-Week". Apparently not many wanted to do that, but I'm more than willing to give a presentation to go to NI-Week.

I've also had some e-mail correspondence with a PR person from NI and she said I could check out a USB video camera to record my experience at NI-Week. It will a video for NI but I'm also going to put some of the video here, so I want to get some good footage. I'm looking for any interesting and unique aspects of NI-Week I can find; Or any interesting or unique people I can get on video.

I would also like to meet anyone who reads this and is at NI-Week for the video, too.

I want encourage everyone who is able to go to NI-Week, at least on the free Expo Pass. It's a great experience! Plus Austin is fun, the music on 6th street is great, and UT is there.

Future of Test

At work, I've been dealing with innovation, future of test software, and even doing a little bit of real engineering work in my spare time.

With all this I keep wondering, what is the Future of test set? Of test software? How much will change before I retire? When can I retire (different topic)? Also, I was doing an install of some software and had some time to contemplate the future.

I know in the future the Engineers creed of "Smaller, Better, Faster" will be in effect. Also the concept of Cheaper is being pushed really hard. So what will happen in the future.

Smaller is easy. We've seen it happen for years in standards like VME going to VXI and to PXI as well as chassis like the compactRIO. With these different architectures we've also seen faster speeds. So in the next 10 years I'm sure there will be a sub-compactRIO or RIO-micro.

I'm pretty sure distributed systems will be more common. A system where there is a central control and information repository with connections to small "brick" testers that can be put just about anywhere, temperature chambers, remote less access able test area's. There will be wireless connections where possible so that even wires aren't needed. Some type of Ethernet (hardwire or wireless) will connect to the brick and the brick will control and communication with the units under test (UUT). All test results and operator interface will back at the central computer. The central computer will control several different tests at one time.

There will be more embedded test programs in the units under test (UUT), there will be less discrete interfaces. Since UUTs being tested are getting smaller (better faster) too, there will be less area for interfaces. Software expertise will be needed to develop Operational Test Programs (OTPs) to load into units to test them.

With distributed test systems and smaller test sets there will be more "soft" instrument front panels on the display screens and less physical instrument front panels. The soft instrument front panels on the screens would give an image of what the real instrument front panel would look like if it were real. They would control the various instruments manually when it's needed and would minimize when the device isn't being used. Touch screens would be great for this function so that the operator would still "touch" on the interface.

Of course, all this are just some possibilities for the future.

From Hack to Engineer

I talked about people being the most important tool of Test Engineering. People are the most important factor in any Engineering discipline. People, Engineers, are the constant though out development. No matter how good or thorough the processes are people still have to implement them. And if the processes are not good the people still have to develop the product.

There are several levels of skill that go along with doing the job of Engineer. A hack (not be be confused with hacker) learns as he goes, acts and then thinks, and cleans up his messes only when he absolutely has to, if he can't pass it on to someone else.

Then theirs the craftsman Engineer. He studies, he plans, uses his best practices and tools and takes pride in his work. But a craftsman is not to the level of Engineer because while, he develops a well crafted product, it lacks predictability and certainty.

Then theirs Engineers. With Engineers it's all about knowing instead of guessing. An Engineer doesn't estimate, he/she calculates. An Engineer doesn't hope, he knows. Estimates can formed based on what they devise. Engineers basically have consistency.

Consistency is what Engineers are about. They still need the hack characteristic of learning as they go and the craftsman characteristic of using best practices and tools.

The best way to get a good product is to have good Engineers working on the product. We also need to encourage and train the hack Engineer to become a Craftsman. We also need to encourage and train the craftsman Engineer to become a real Engineer.