Uh oh, manual testing is no longer manual?

Well known test consultant James Bach has now coined a new term for manual testing - it's called sapient testing. Well, the part of manual testing that is not drudgery is called sapient testing at least. James makes a great point about how manual testing is actually a composite set of actions that can be divided into sections that CAN be automated and sections that can't. Yeah - I agree manual testing is a pretty overloaded term that way. Go read the article to find a lucid articulation of the whole manual testing process.

Most of us testers usually crib about not having a common language/jargon to talk to other testers. I have seen zillions of discussions about how QA and QM and testing are all completely different things. Innocent sounding words like test case and scenario are rendered ambiguous too. However, I wonder if we are collectively heading to the other part of the spectrum with too much terminology to remember? Trust us to solve one problem to lead to another :)

Hey - but the next time you talk to me about sapient testing, at least I won't give you a blank look :D

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