# Work Blog

A collection of articles on software testing, test engineering, and Agile methodology by Gregory Gauthier.

## Published Articles

| Article | Topic |
|---------|-------|
| [Testers As Explorers](articles/published/Testers-As-Explorers.md) | Exploratory testing as chartered expedition, not aimless wandering |
| [Agile, Or Whatever You Call It](articles/published/Agile-Or-Whatever-You-Call-It.md) | The case for Agile practices beyond the buzzword |
| [The Various Uses Of Vegetable Condiments In Testing](articles/published/The-Various-Uses-Of-Vegetable-Condiments-In-Testing.md) | BDD, Gherkin, and the proper use of Cucumber |
| [Five Essential Lessons](articles/published/five-essential-lessons.md) | Key takeaways from *Lessons Learned In Software Testing* |
| [The Categories Of Testing](articles/published/the-categories-of-testing.md) | Categorising tests by the kinds of facts they discover |
| [The Perturbation Theory Of Exploratory Testing](articles/published/the-perturbation-theory-of-exploratory-testing.md) | Applying perturbation theory concepts to exploratory testing |
| [What Is A Competent Tester?](articles/published/what-is-a-competent-tester.md) | Joel Spolsky on the distinction between testers and failed programmers |
| [The Logic Of Software Testing](articles/published/the-logic-of-software-testing.md) | Formal reasoning methods testers use: modus ponens, modus tollens, induction, and abduction |
| [Perfection And Testing](articles/published/perfection-and-testing.md) | Why testing is about managing risk and confidence, not chasing perfection |
| [Resources For Testers](articles/published/resources-for-testers.md) | Recommended books, blogs, and learning resources for software testers |
| [What Makes Us Better](articles/published/what-makes-us-better.md) | Whether AI tools like Claude change the *kind* of craft, not just the speed |
| [Testing Telos](articles/published/testing-telos.md) | Four archetypal testing shapes, each the visible expression of a distinct engineering *telos* |

## Drafts

| Article | Topic |
|---------|-------|
| [The Uses and Abuses of Test Automation](articles/drafts/uses-and-abuses.md) | Whether automation expands the craft of testing or quietly becomes a different craft |
| [Agile Stories](articles/drafts/agile-stories.md) | User stories as actors, objects, and purposes — what this reveals about Agile |
| [When Not To Test](articles/drafts/when-not-to-test.md) | *Phronesis* about where testing effort is wasted or actively harmful |
| [The Oracle Problem](articles/drafts/the-oracle-problem.md) | How we know what "correct" means, and how oracles conflict |
| [Popper and the Risky Test](articles/drafts/popper-and-the-risky-test.md) | A good test as a falsifiable prediction — Popper's demarcation applied to suites |
| [Regression as Institutional Memory](articles/drafts/regression-as-institutional-memory.md) | Test suites as codified belief; failures as either discovery or amnesia |
| [On Flakiness](articles/drafts/on-flakiness.md) | Heraclitus and the non-deterministic test — flakiness as a signal, not noise |
| [Tacit Knowledge and the Testing Checklist](articles/drafts/tacit-knowledge-checklist.md) | Polanyi on what experienced testers know but cannot hand to a checklist or an LLM |
| [The Tester as Witness](articles/drafts/tester-as-witness.md) | The legal metaphor that dissolves the "tester as gatekeeper" confusion |
| [Test Environments and Plato's Cave](articles/drafts/test-environments-and-platos-cave.md) | Dev, staging, UAT, prod as caves with their own shadows |
| [Testing Probabilistic Systems](articles/drafts/testing-probabilistic-systems.md) | Why the pyramid breaks on ML, and what shape replaces it |
| [When Quality Becomes Quantity](articles/drafts/when-quality-becomes-quantity.md) | Goodhart's Law and the degradation of testing metrics once they become targets |

## Structure

```
articles/
  published/   # Completed articles
  drafts/      # Work in progress
assets/
  clipart/     # Illustrative clipart
  general/     # Screenshots and diagrams
  memes/       # Memes referenced in articles
scripts/
  new-article          # Creates new article from title and opens in vim
  article-template.md  # Template used by the script
```

## Creating New Articles

You can quickly create a new article with proper front-matter using the helper script:

```bash
scripts/new-article "The Telos of Test Automation"
```

This will:
- Generate a clean slug from the title
- Create the file in `articles/drafts/`
- Populate it with the current front-matter standard and template structure
- Open the file in `vim` (falls back to `vi`)

See `scripts/article-template.md` and `GROK.md` for the current conventions.