Testing Times

When I’m writing websites and the like, I set up a number of test users so I can test various areas of functionality.

I used to give them names like Drew Peacock, Tess Tickle or Mike Oxlong – but stopped due to them being read out loud and discussed in meetings with board members and the like. (Which is very amusing, but can lead to certain levels of embarassment when the person demonstrating hasn’t actually made the connection until they’ve said the names out loud)  So now I use names like “Testy McTestTest” instead, which should stand out as, you know, a made-up name.

Today though, no, that wasn’t the case. Having done some test signups for a particular piece of site functionality (on the live site, as it was final testing) yesterday, I was copied in on an email today where a colleague decided that the site had been ‘hacked’ because there were four or five Testy McTestTests with different settings on each one. (and all using the email address test@test.com) No other damage, nothing – but obviously “we’d been hacked”

It’s taken every ounce of tact I have (which admittedly isn’t a great deal) to not call the person in question a fuckwit.

Mind you, everyone else on the mailing list (including Board members, Managers, and my line manager) appears to have clearly seen the sarcasm in the response “Apologies for the confusion caused – I will work to ensure that any further test signups are flagged as test signups in a clearer fashion“.