Issue 134

COMMENT

Welcome to the 134th issue! 👋

I have two things to share with you this week.

The first one is The European Software Testing Benchmark Report 2022 by Software Testing News.

The most surprising thing I found there is that culture and budget are the least constraining factors to implementing QA and testing practices, while processes and team capacity are the most.

Secondly, it's my 30th birthday at the end of August, so I decided to take a month off work. For the next four weeks, I'll be travelling and taking time to relax and reflect.

That means the next newsletter issue will be out on September 2nd. Stay tuned!

And in the meantime... happy testing! 🙂

NEWS

9 Quality Culture Fails And What You Can Do About Them

To build quality products, teams need to have good quality culture. Vernon Richards tells us about the things that they should not be doing.

In relation to that, Ben Dowen shares his thoughts on The 7th Principle of Modern Testing which encourages sharing testing responsibilities with other team members.

And finally, Areti Panou shared some advice on Prerequisites For Teams Without Testers.

Is there a perfect QA process for software?

Well, I wish there was... or maybe not! Because what would have happened to our jobs then? People shared some interesting thoughts in the comments.

Speaking of QA processes, Venkat Ramakrishnan wrote a good article about The Testing Ecosystem Of Startups.

Optimising the start of your exploratory testing

Wondering how to approach exploratory testing? Maaret Pyhäjärvi suggests six useful steps that will help you get started.

Moreover, Tejas Patel shares a lot of ideas for Easy & Step-By-Step Ways of Finding Bugs in Software.

Requirement Analysis

Teams that don't put enough effort into defining requirements often pay a big price in the latter stages of the software development lifecycle. Lina Zubyte explains the right process of defining them by asking questions and writing down user stories.

Stress-testing: How Testers Live in a Turbulent World of Bugs

Lidiya Egorova brings up an important, rarely discussed topic about software testing — the stress related to that role. She shares a lot of insightful findings from her observations.

What’s the quality of your product?

Quality is a subjective thing. Dan Ashby uses real-life examples to describe different perspectives of perceiving it.

Dan also wrote a follow-up article explaining 8 Perspectives of Quality: A Model.

AUTOMATION

Automating the release process

In this insightful article, Daniel Kheyfets shares their journey of automating the release process of mobile applications, including the planning, implementation, visualisation and consequences.

Contract Integration Testing

Semyon Kirekov explains when contract testing can be useful and shows a few practical examples of using it.

Design Patterns for QA Automation: Build effective test solutions

Ever wondered how you can utilise software design patterns in test automation? Kostiantyn Teltov demonstrates a lot of good examples.

Testing Strategies For Microservices

Working with microservice architecture? Tomas Fernandez wrote a detailed guide explaining the possible ways of testing it.

Additionally, Christian Witt wrote about the Testing levels: From Unit test to System test.

Why I Switched my day-to-day work from Programming to Automated Testing? Part 2: More Fun

You may see people moving from software testing to software development. But there are people going the other way around, too. Zhimin Zhan shares what convinced him to do it.

Note: If you can't access the full article, simply open it in a private tab.

TOOLS

Open-source Automation Testing Tools for Windows Desktop Apps

What would you use to test desktop apps for Windows? Gļebs Veprevs did a great job describing and comparing several free tools.

Will Playwright become next Selenium?

Babu Manickam shares a short overview of Selenium and gives several reasons that may convince you to switch to Playwright.

Which Testing Framework are you using currently at work?

Someone ran a survey asking software testers what test automation tools they use. Surprised by the results? Because I am!

BOOKS

Can anyone suggest a good book to learn the fundamentals of Software QA?

If you're looking for a book to learn about software testing from scratch, you're not the only one. Luckily, there are quite a few good suggestions in this Reddit thread.

Testing & "Exponential Organizations"

Inspired by an excerpt about Facebook's practices in software development and testing mentioned in the Exponential Organizations book, Lee Hawkins shares his thoughts on why it may not be so ideal.

VIDEOS

Easiest Way to Calculate Return on Investment of Automation Testing?

There's no denying that test automation often requires a significant investment of time and effort. But how can you justify if it's worth it? Pramod Dutta gives some clues.

How to Fix A Bug (Properly)

If you wonder where bugs come from and what you can do to increase the chances of preventing them, you'll enjoy this 43-minute webinar recording by Gil Zilberfeld.

AND...

Everyone will remember... 😂

Thanks for reading!

If you like this newsletter and it helps you become a better tester, you can say thanks and buy me a coffee.

PS. I'll transfer every donation to Nasz Wybór Foundation which supports Ukrainian refugees in Poland. 🇺🇦 🙏

Issue 134 July 29th 2022