Continuing my new life and journey along the bumpy software testing road I’m in the awkward position of wanting to know everything about the craft…right now!! I mean everything!! I’ve always been the same, I go through stages in my life where I get fully into something – let me explain this a tiny bit so you don’t lose interest and you actually have a clue where my point is going….
I love books now but I always haven’t, there’s something about them that makes people (in my eyes anyway) seem more interesting and intellectual – let’s face it knowledge is power and it frightens some people. When I see and meet folks who I know, that read a lot and tend to use big elaborate words for very simple things and chuck them into everyday life to make people think “Wow…you’re like, super smart and stuff” it impresses me and bugs me at the same time. My current all-time favourite at the moment but this is subject to change through the course of my journey is Librocubicularist: one who reads in bed – when I actually heard this I thought two things: 1) Eh?! 2) Why have you just given me a Trivial Pursuit answer? Saying you like to read in bed would have saved so much time and confusion. Where was I, went off on a tangent then…oh yeah, going through obsessive stages…..I went through a “French Foreign Legion” stage a few years back (don’t ask) – it started with me reading an article, to then buying one book, to then buying several more books and researching it more and more – Amazon.co.uk and myself were best mates at this point! I was living in a small barrack room on an Army camp at the time and was running out of space for my books so I popped down to IKEA and bought a bookcase/shelf (it was a bloody bargain at £15). I filled the shelves with these books – Slightly OCD’d of course…Height and Alphabetical order, it would have just annoyed me every time I looked at them if I didn’t arrange them. Fellow soldiers would could into my room, admire my books and ask questions….I would tend to only give them answers and information that I was comfortable with giving so it sounded like I knew what I was talking about but did I really??!
I’m in the same sort of situation now with learning and building up Software Testing knowledge – I know this is not a “stage” of any kind what so ever, I’ve fallen big time for this craft and every day it keeps me hooked and wanting more but I’ve started to fall into the old routine of amassing a shed loads of stuff (Books, Articles, Lists of things I’d like to research, Ever growing number of Blogs I want to read, etc.) I’ve read so much information in a short time that my brain is ready to explode – I’m obsessed with wanting to know everything but I feel like I need to know it right now!! All in one day!! If I don’t, I will continue to be left behind and not current and up to date with the latest information. This is me – I’d set out with a goal of reading up on one thing but I’d see something that relates to it somehow and then get distracted by this and read about that other thing and so on and so on. I’m finding it difficult to prioritize and because I’m not doing this, I know I’m not truly taking in what I’m reading and taking the time to think about it and question it, so I understand the information fully. Several occasions I have been asked a question and I know for a fact that I’ve read about it somewhere but I get tongue tied and have a mini brain fart and nothing that constitutes English actually comes out of my mouth. My thirst for knowledge is huge but I’m also coming to realization that I need to take that “condor moment” – It’s an old Army saying about taking time to pause and reflect before going into action. I need to take in and process this new information so that I’m not just ploughing through endless books thinking that I know more because I’m doing this so frequently.
That’s me done…give yourself a pat on the back for hanging on in there till the end, you can get back to your lives now > Thanks for reading!!
The journey continues……
Danny Dainton 
As you’ve already seen from a couple of my blog posts, it doesn’t get any easier, the books pile up, the Amazon WIsh List grows and more and deeper rabbit holes appear. But if that didn’t happen then you’d be a pretty crap tester as curiosity and learning helps mark out a good tester
This old thread from the STC might help you, it was about what to learn next
http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/forum/topics/how-do-you-choose-what-you
Phil, you have been a massive help so far. Thank you sir!
Just paying back some of the help I got when I started out
Danny, first of all, you are a wonderful writer. Truly! Second, it’s like you’re in my head! I have the exact same problem all of the time! I have so many testing related books I’ve ordered, articles, blog posts, and online courses piling up, it’s ridiculous. Sometimes I can take that pause you talk about and say, “Okay, just read this one thing, that’s all you need to do”. And other days, it feels so overwhelming, I do nothing because there’s too many things to choose from! But then I remind myself that I can’t do it all in one day. It really is a journey. And as Phil says in his response to you, “learning helps mark out a good tester”. There are so many good things in that pile to chose from, choosing even one thing is the step in the right direction, which then leads to another, and another. So just know you have a comrade in arms right here with you! I look forward to hearing about your journey in the days, months, and years to come.
Thank you!! It’s good to hear I’m not alone in all this and others are finding the same things that I find hard too. We have a truly great community and one that has helped me so much, only way I can repay that is by learning, evolving and trying to be the best tester I can be. Thanks again, your input is always appreciated!!