“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. “- Oprah Winfrey

My theme: something about books, something about poetry, and something about tech – QA in specific. And B is Brilliant: B is for The Book Thief, the Bop and Boundary

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Entertainment Corner:

B is Brilliant: B is for The Book Thief:

The Book:

Some books leave me in tears and take me through a whole gamut of emotions in addition, literally. And I am glad to be reading by myself when I find myself in such a situation – else I will be known as that ‘kooky’ lady who smiles, LOLs, snorts, giggles, weeps copious amount of tears seemingly for no reason. ‘The Book Thief’ was definitely one of those books.

You will find mention of this book a few times in my blog. Letting the book do it’s talking in a post here and relating a few of the many real historical facts from the book here; then in a few top ten posts as well 🙂

The Movie:

We watched the movie a long time after it was released. Somehow I was not in any hurry to watch this one. And when we did, we liked it.

The film did a pretty good job of capturing much of the emotion (sometimes by making it overtly so, I felt) and conveyed heartbreak and humor well enough where our eyes shimmered and lips curved while we watched the movie. The movie definitely had a made-to-fit-the-characters ensemble, especially Sophie Nélisse as Liesel.

There are definitely differences between the book and the movie – this is inevitable as it is almost impossible to translate any book scene by scene to a movie. But there are some additions that the movie could have benefited from (which were left out/reduced – the magnificent narrator of the book’s minuscule appearance for one) and there are some alterations from the book that seemed unnecessary.

In the end, while the movie is beautifully made, that feeling of magic I got from reading the book was missing, at least for me.

The Question: Book or Movie:

While this movie is definitely astounding when viewed independent of the book (if someone had not read the book at all), in comparison – there is no question about this one at all: for me, the book is a clear winner! What is your choice? Vote below:

[yop_poll id=2]

To order the book and/or the movie, click on the links below:

Book:  Amazon|| Book Depository || Target|| Barnes and Noble 

Movie:  Amazon||  Barnes and Noble 

Poetry Corner:

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”
– Thomas Gray

B is for the Bop. This name sounds just wonderful, right, something to sing and dance along to.

The bop, while a recent poetic form, already has variants. It has three stanzas in its original version, each followed by a repeating refrain.

The first stanza of six lines describes a problem, the second one with eight lines expands or explores the problem further, while the third stanza with six lines again either describes the solution or the failed attempt to solve the problem. 

You can check out my first attempt at it here on my blog.

QA Corner:

B is for Boundary Testing:

Granted, one of the most popular words from the letter B in the QA/Testing world simply has to be ‘bug‘. While Wikipedia has its own definition of what a bug, specifically as related to this series here on my blog – a software bug is. But I loved a definition that explained it in simpler terms along the lines of – ‘A bug is something that bugs someone.’

But I will introduce a different term here today – Boundary Testing.

What it is:

As the words indicate, boundary testing refers to testing using boundary values for the product/application/software being tested. The tester uses both valid and invalid boundary values. What does that mean, you say?

Why:

Boundary Testing helps in testing effectively and efficiently when there is a large number of values (and/or calculation-intensive tests) by placing the emphasis on the boundary values.

Example 1: Length of a text input box

For example, you are creating a new username for yourself on another website you want to register yourself for. You know by experience that creation of these usernames and passwords both have rules you need to follow.

So, this website requires that the username is anywhere between 5 to 12 characters in length (let us just use this rule). To do boundary testing for this rule, a tester needs to identify the boundary values for the length of the username – 5 and 12.

Next – which are the valid and invalid values around these boundary values? They are 4,5,6,11,12,13 (and if you want maybe a couple more)

Now that the valid and invalid boundary values are identified, the tester can create usernames with those lengths and test that results are as expected.

For values 4 and 13 – should throw a message indicating this is an invalid length for username.

For the other values identified – 5, 6, 11, and 12 – should accept the username (assuming other rules are followed)

Example 2: Values of a numeric input box

Other examples of boundary values are numeric inputs – for eg: a pizza order input box can accept values between 1 and 10 only. So invalid boundary values of 0 and 11 are not accepted; while valid boundary values of 1, 2, 9, and 10 are.

Wrapping up the B post:

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius

So there you have it – my take on the letter B for this time. What are your thoughts on this? Do you have any questions on any of them? I will be glad to answer them. Any comments and opinions on these welcome too! Previous posts for this challenge are in links below.

Day 0 Day 1

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