I am a History buff. Of course I also went back to school and did a major in it, getting my Bachelor's from Boston University while still working in Software. I was going to do a CS degree but honestly, much as I like it, programming during the day and for homework didn't really suit me. After some discussion with my wife I ended up changing to History, since it was something I loved, I think it was a great decision since I got exposed to subjects and topics I never would have thought to take on my own. From those I learned a lot about how to analyze situations and topics, do research and apply that to the question or topic at hand; something I do a lot of while Testing.
Testing IS History. Regression Tests are a way of compounding a Historical Record of Fact that says, these things happened and if we want to prevent them we can do THIS or THAT. Something that in History we often table about, the What If format is not only a plot line from Fiction novels but sometimes is a way of viewing an event from a certain perspective. Of course as our understanding of events increases so does the Historical Record and our understanding of it, I find that Regression Tests are the same way. The more I understand a certain issue, or feature, the more I can improve my test case and get the confidence level of the product higher.
When scheduling I rely on my knowledge of prior events, but being the person I am I document everything as I go along. This gives me a record to use and base my future estimates on rather than giving my "gut feel" for a specific project or set of features. When I did releases we often put times for specific steps to take, this way in long releases we were able to say when certain people were needed to help, or to even frame the maintenance window needed.
These are just two examples, but very deep and broad ones.
How do you use and document your prior knowledge on events and tests? Do you document your test code, like a historical record, so others who come later can figure out what you were doing?
