James Thomas
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hiccupps.bsky.social
James Thomas
@hiccupps.bsky.social
550 followers 180 following 78 posts
Software tester.

Hiccupps: https://qahiccupps.blogspot.com/
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hiccupps.bsky.social
Get your kicks where you can.

Blogged: The Joy of Clicks qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...
The Joy of Clicks
It's all relative. There's enough wrong in the world that having an imperfect job in tough economic times is still a privilege that many w...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:50 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Habitual value starts with valuable habits.

Blogged: qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...
The Momentum of Doing It
It's 14 years since I first posted on Hiccupps and one since I wrote about about  using trees for my mental health . Both practices are ongo...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
October 26, 2025 at 7:59 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
How Doctors Think, how they could think, and how we can also think.

Blogged: Open Your Mind qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/10/open...
Open Your Mind
Jerome Groopman, in How Doctors Think , reviews ways in which doctors can make poor choices, identifies potential causes, and su...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
October 20, 2025 at 5:36 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Learning? Find your own path.

Blogged: I Wish I Could Sprechen Sie Deutsch qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/10/i-wi...
I Wish I Could Sprechen Sie Deutsch
I'm slowly learning German ... for fun, believe it or not.  To limit my time commitment I've been mostly studying with lessons on a...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:53 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
It is worth trying to define quality engineering, quality assurance, and testing?

Blogged: Q What, Mate? qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/09/q-wh...
Q What, Mate?
I'm enjoying The Vernon Richard Show  a lot recently because the vibe Vern and Richard have created is one where two knowledgeable...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
September 14, 2025 at 7:10 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Must, Should, Could, Won't?

Blogged: Prioritise we Must qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/08/prio...
Prioritise we Must
Over on the Agile in the Ether  Slack instance one of the Ethernets recently asked: MoSCoW: Does anybody have a simple way of expl...
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August 25, 2025 at 10:37 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Where do the constraints on your work come from? Where *should* they come from?

Blogged: Bottom-up or Top-down? qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/08/bott...
Bottom-up or Top-down?
The theme at  LLEWT this year was Rules and constraints to ensure better quality.   My experience report concerned a team I'd been on...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
August 20, 2025 at 5:40 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
We agree. Or do we?

Blogged: Projects I've Bean On qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/07/proj...
Projects I've Bean On
It was my wedding anniversary recently. The picture at the top is the front of the card I got for my wife. Yeah, I know. Somehow she still l...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
July 29, 2025 at 4:08 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Exploring a quote to try to understand why I found it so instantly compelling even while it nagged away at me.

Blogged: The Best Testing I Could qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-...
The Best Testing I Could
Maaret Pyhäjärvi  posted the quote above on LinkedIn a few weeks ago. It speaks strongly to me so I asked Maaret if she'd writ...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
July 23, 2025 at 4:39 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
A peer conference on rules and constraints for quality that explores social, technical, and organisational issues? Yes please.

Blogged: LLEWT 2025 qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/07/llew...
LLEWT 2025
I attended LLEWT 2025 at the weekend. LLEWT is a peer conference  hosted by Chris Chant, Joep Schuurkes, and  Elizabeth Zagroba...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
July 15, 2025 at 3:32 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Is your test data getting in the way of your testing?

Blogged: Real vs Clear qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/07/real...
Real vs Clear
I'm been working on an application that will orchestrate data from multiple services. As the developers add clients for those services, th...
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July 9, 2025 at 8:16 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Learning a little is usually better than learning nothing.

Blogged: Don't be that Mug qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/06/dont...
Don't be that Mug
I've spoken to a couple of friends recently about testers they know who continually express a desire to "learn automation" and continually f...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
June 15, 2025 at 3:37 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
We might not be the end users of our product, but we are the end users of our tests.

Blogged: Users of Unit Tests qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/05/user...
Users of Unit Tests
We are generally not the target users of the software products we work on.  That's not to say we never use our applications or that we have ...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
May 31, 2025 at 9:20 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
I try to be intentional about my use of tools and it turns out that includes using unfashionable and arcane utilities if they suit my needs.

Blogged: Where Bash Fits for Me qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/05/wher...
Where Bash Fits for Me
My friend Mirek wrote an interesting post recently: Where Rust fits for me . In it, he made a hierarchy of the programming languages he re...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
May 15, 2025 at 7:27 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
The map you make while exploring probably isn't the map your colleagues need for comprehending.

Blogged: Going Underground qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/05/goin...
Going Underground
The map is not the territory. You've heard this before and I've quoted it before . The longer quote (due to Alfred Korzybski) from...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
May 4, 2025 at 12:45 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
38x better in a year? Well, no, but don't discount the value of intentional practice and the compounding effect.

Blogged: Compound Interesting qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/04/comp...
Compound Interesting
In simpler times you had to go out of your way to find useless motivational banalities. There'd be an aisle in the shops that you could ea...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
April 19, 2025 at 12:30 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
How did I come to buy a pair of Superstars every year for the last 20 years? A post for The April Cools' Club.

Blogged: My Adidas qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/04/my-a...
My Adidas
If you've met me anywhere outside of a wedding or funeral, a snowy day, or a muddy field in the last 20 years you'll have seen...
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April 1, 2025 at 4:59 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Third post inspired by Kill it with Fire by Marianne Bellotti. This one on trends in tech, the hype cycle, and who drives the market.

Blogged: New Again Or qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/03/new-...
New Again Or
I told you how much I love Kill it with Fire by Marianne Bellotti in This is Fire and you can see it in my copy above too. It's a...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
March 23, 2025 at 1:02 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Project management gems extracted from Kill it with Fire by Marianne Bellotti.

Blogged: Putting the PR in Project qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/03/putt...
Putting the PR in Project
Kill it with Fire is ostensibly a book about legacy systems but is packed with good advice about managing any significant project. In one...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
March 16, 2025 at 5:25 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Why you should read Kill it with Fire by Marianne Bellotti if you are in the software business.

Blogged: This is Fire qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/03/this...
This is Fire
Kill it with Fire is by Marianne Bellotti is a truly awesome book about dealing with legacy systems. If you're in softw...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
March 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Simultaneously embarrassing and flattering to have my work called out on a podcast, but I *do* love making just enough tooling to answer the questions I have.

qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/02/love...
Love My Work
In a recent episode of the Vernon Richard show , testing's dynamic duo were inspired by Valentine's Day to talk about their love for our cra...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
February 23, 2025 at 8:10 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Nine approaches to work that I find are valuable more often than not.

Blogged: Heuristics for Working Today qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/02/heur...
Heuristics for Working Today
Whatever our workplace constraints, we have agency over our own actions and the choices we make impact us, those around us, and the wo...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
February 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
hiccupps.bsky.social
I've been repeatedly asked a question about testing AI, so I made some notes to help me answer it.

Blogged: How do I Test AI? qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/01/how-...
How do I Test AI?
Recently a few people have asked me how I test AI. I'm happy to share my experiences, but I frame the question more broadly, perhaps some...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
January 26, 2025 at 6:24 AM
hiccupps.bsky.social
Gently venting about school IT policy, implementation, and Microsoft.

Blogged: HS MS BS qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2025/01/hs-m...
HS MS BS
My daughter's high school requires its students to have access to a laptop at home for school work. The school's trust is a Microsoft ...
qahiccupps.blogspot.com
January 13, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by James Thomas
simontomes.com
Repost with a cool song that’s under two minutes.

Basmati (Live) – Chilly Gonzales.

tidal.com/browse/track...
January 10, 2025 at 11:13 AM