Issue 150

COMMENT

Welcome to the 150th issue!

Wow, it really is a hundred-fiftieth issue!

It means it's been nearly 3 years of sharing the best news with you — every single week.

And it's a huge milestone. Thank you!

To celebrate that, I'm taking a break for the next three weeks to fully enjoy the holiday season.

Have a wonderful time off and I'll see you in 2023.

Happy testing! 🙂

PS. If can't wait that long for the next issue, have a look at the Archive.

NEWS

Discover what Shift-Left Testing is

Sometimes it's good to revisit the basics. In this article, Tainara Reis explains the concept of shift-left testing — starting testing practices early in the software development lifecycle.

What's more, Faith Quinn wrote a fair comparison explaining Verification vs Validation — What’s the difference?.

Testing Center of Excellence Clarified

You might have heard of the Testing Center of Excellence framework for introducing testing standards across the organisation. Zhimin Zhan shares his opinion on it in the context of test automation.

In relation to that, Dilruba Malik wrote about Uplifting QA Teams Through Metrics.

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

What parts of the software testing job do you dislike the most?

Someone asked this question on Reddit and it yielded some both entertaining and interesting answers from the community.

When Management Asks "Why Didn't You Find That Bug?"

This article is another good answer to the thread mentioned above. Michael Bolton gives great advice on how to deal with the blame on testers for missing a bug.

Furthermore, Roman Borisov shares some insights into Why QA tasks should not be delegated.

AUTOMATION

Awesome Test Automation University Courses Not To Miss

The holiday break is coming up, so why not spend that time learning new things? Andrew Knight wrote a great summary of the best courses at the free Test Automation University.

Automation Coverage

Ryan Craven describes the common metrics for measuring test automation coverage, explaining its pros and cons and why it depends on different contexts.

And once you start improving your coverage, beware of the Flakey UI automation.

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

Building a strong quality focused organization: A bottom-up approach

Continuing the series of articles that I mentioned last week, Shivam Gohel describes how automation impacts the quality culture in the organisation.

Also, Shivam explains Why organizations should prefer native automation frameworks over third-party tools.

Keeping tests valuable: Avoid commons mistakes

Rafael Miguel gives some great examples of how to write tests well. Although it's based on unit testing, most of these practices can also be applied in higher-level tests.

TOOLS

Android UI Testing Made Easy: Espresso vs. Barista

Meva Akkaya wrote a nice overview and comparison of the two Android test tools: Espresso and Barista.

And if you test on iOS, Courtney Zhan wrote a good guide to Setting up Appium 2 to run XCUITest.

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

Cypress V12 Is A Big Deal

Another month, another big release! Cypress 12 brings some exciting features that Gleb Bahmutov describes in more detail.

What's more, Gurudatt S A also wrote about the Introduction to Custom Query in Cypress.

And finally, here's an explanation of the Cypress Cross Origin Testing + BIG Cypress 12 updates in an 8-minute video.

Free Online Test Data Generators

Setting up test data is an important part of test automation. Here's a list of handy, online test data generators for your convenience.

When a Machine Talks about Software Testing

Last week, I featured articles on how OpenAI tools can help testers. Today, you can see an example conversation about software testing with it.

Moreover, Jason Arbon asked OpenAI to write a test plan for itself.

What Is Visual Regression Testing? Top 5 Visual Testing Tools

If you're looking for tools that can help you test the visual part of your apps, check out this list by Brian Anderson describing commercial as well as open-source solutions.

VIDEOS

Page Object Model in Playwright

In this helpful, 29-minute video, you'll learn how to design and apply the Page Object Model in Playwright.

AND...

Developer vs tester... 🤣

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.