Course with James Bach

I've just finished a great course with James Bach where many of my ideas and thoughts about testing got very much clearer. My thoughts and insights, among many are the following: Think for yourself! Define what you do and evolve that into something better. Learn from your and others mistakes.

My problem with testing so long has been the lack of common definitions, the lack of arguments and the unreasonable faith in things. If one tester says "System Testing" one tester will think non-functional testing such as stress testing, performance testing, robustness testing. Another tester will think functional testing of the entire system. Or as the ISTQB defines: "The process of testing an integrated system to verify that it meets specified requirements.". Which actually does not say anything. As for the arguments I have often heard things like "You should do like this." and upon the the question why you get something like "Because it is best." or "Because we have always done this." or similar. Which leads to the blind faith thing, which of course goes against what Mr Bach tries to teach, to think for yourself.

Currently I feel that this is still not something you can be told but something you have to experience, but what I ask is that when you do. Please try to learn from it.