Depending on certain variables it can sometimes be rare or popular (at the opposite end of the spectrum) to meet somebody at work, on your team who is as passionate about the craft (and getting better at it) as you are. These dependent variables (among many) can be company, company culture, team, team structure, projects, communication methods, technology, and of course colleagues themselves.

Working as a consultant you meet many people. I recently met a fellow Software Tester very interested in learning more about certain approaches to testing and to become a better, skilled (building on current skill level) Software Tester – very similar to myself.

One of the areas of testing he’s worked with and is working on becoming better at is Performance Testing. Of course Scott Barber’s name came up as we’ve both read a lot of his work and apply what we’ve learned from the content where applicable. My colleague at work has more knowledge and skill than me in the area of Performance Testing – it’s actually an area of testing where I want to improve my skill level (and working towards that goal).

One technology I’ve worked with considerably and improved my knowledge & skill level (and continuing to improve) over the last 4-5 years is testing applications built on SOA. I’ve worked with both SoapUI Pro and SOAPSonar as my primary testing tools. I’ve created and executed operational + inter-operational tests based on what I was testing and the way in which the back-end service would be used (or be called) in a production environment by actual users. I have more knowledge and skill than my colleague testing applications built on SOA – testing applications built on SOA is something he’s very interested in and wants to improve his skill level.

We’ve agreed to share and exchange knowledge, test approaches, technical knowledge regarding different tools & how to use them, the different types of applications we’ve tested, and documentation we’ve created to aid in test setup & execution over the next few weeks. Of course there is the intersection where SOA based tools may be used to do performance tests.

Looking forward to the learning curve ahead!