I came across an interesting Debugging Story about login credentials that only worked when the user was seated. Whenever they attempted to login while standing, their credentials failed. Until one wise debugger asked the right question. Read the story here, in this book excerpt from Programming Perls by Jon Louis Bentley. It reminded me of one of my own stories: the new user whose initial password refused to work. I was part of a small team making a web portal for a medical insurance company. It would let medical practitioners submit predetermination-of-benefits requests before the proposed procedure was performed. We created a first roll-out to three partner offices, with a minimal set of useful features. We called it our Beta release. Two of the offices began using the system right away. The third could not log in.
Musings on Tests, Quality, Tools, Projects and more. By Steve Page