15 July 2001, 22:30 GMT

"Some of our current testers are little better than pond life," QA Manager Jude Large explained. "Triffids will be a big step forward: a big giant leap out of the Primordial Soup."

A triffid inspects a badly written Visual Basic module, yesterday.

"Our primary goal is to scare the living shit out of our programmers," she continued. "We have had instances where programmers have socialised with QA testers, meeting them after work for drinks and games of football in the park. This really breaks the mould that we have set for our department, and cannot be tolerated.

"The QA department must provide a totally domineering, totally scary veneer. It is not our testers' job to be nice to the programmers. In fact the programmers should positively wet themselves if a tester walks into the room. We've tried all sorts - for example putting up Hallowe'en balloons with pictures of witches and skulls around our desks, but it didn't have the desired effect. The programmers kept sneaking up and bursting the balloons, which scared us a lot more than it did them.

"So what we need is something with real bite - something that can actually do physical harm to the programmers if their code is buggy, and yet cannot suffer any legal repurcussions. I mean, whoever heard of anyone sueing a plant for assault?" She laughed candidly.

"We have already begun farming the triffids, and so far they are proving to be quite suitable for the job. When a program does not behave as expected, the triffid really becomes quite angry, and will lash out at the nearest person with its vicious barbed stamen. Of course, we will have to keep a close eye on them, and make sure the programmer responsible is the one that gets the sharp end of the barb." At this, Large put her head back and gave an evil-sounding, deep-toned cackle. "With triffids, there is a genuine threat - that if a programmer persistently fails to fix his or her bugs, they stand a good chance of being blinded for life!"

Of course triffids weren't Large's first choice.

"That's right," she concurred. "We originally wanted to hire Pikachu from Nintendo's Pokemon franchise, as he would have been perfect for luring the programmer into a false sense of security: all cute and pretty on the outside, but a real bastard when it comes down to an all-out fight. We were all set with a very generous offer with full benefits and an excellent remuneration package, until we found out that he doesn't even exist! The little brat is just a cartoon character or something. Man, did I feel stupid when one of the programmers showed me his Pokemon screen-saver!"

So what did John Wyndham have to offer?

Home page of The Triffids, the Australian rock band of the 80s

Revolt of The Triffids

The Day of The Triffids

Triffids and You: Quality Assurance (QA) Resources

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