This year's Conference of the Association for Software Testing (CAST) promises to be another outstanding opportunity to learn about and contribute to context-driven software testing. Last year's conference was again critically acclaimed, and most attendees are returning for more. The 2011 conference is being held in Seattle, WA on August 8 - 10 (http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/conference/). The price is kept reasonable because the AST is a not-for-profit professional society dedicated to advancing the understanding of the science and practice of software testing (not dedicated first to making money).
Besides being reasonably priced, CAST is really unusual in the realm of software quality and software testing conferences because the participants actually confer. It's not just talking heads and experts telling you the way things are according to them. Half of the session time at CAST is devoted to facilitated questions and shared experiences from the floor. Rooms are available (and have been used) to continue discussions after a session is over. Networking time is scheduled into the conference and the culture encourages open, professional questioning and debate. New ideas, emerging topics, debates, and expressing contrary opinions are all encouraged because we learn so much more from our differences and failures than from similarities and successes.
It looks like CAST is going to have a full house this year, with the majority of seats already sold months before the conference. There are still seats available and time to register. I'm looking forward to meeting up with associates and making new friends.
