Issue 220

COMMENT

Welcome to the 220th issue!

Have you ever been to a testing conference?

They're a great way to learn about new things, as well as network with other testers.

We're nearly halfway through the year, but there are still tens of events planned, both online and in person.

Alright, but how do you find them?

Well, there's an amazing list — Software Testing Conferences.

Kudos to Chris Kenst for keeping it up to date.

Happy testing! 🙂

NEWS

3 Fundamental Questions to ask before Testing

Asking the right questions is one of the core skills of a tester. Priyanshu Shekhar tells us about three powerful ones that can help you in your day-to-day work.

14 Ways Testers Can Be Technical Without Writing Code

Callum Akehurst-Ryan gives some great advice on growing various technical skills beyond automation.

Building up Quality Leaders — Study Notes

Want to become a leader in quality? Mahathee Dandibhotla shares insights from a free course on Test Automation University.

Good QA habits and practices

Someone asked for examples of tips or practices from the best testers they worked with and the community brought up quite a few interesting points.

Additionally, Evelyn Milewicz explains in a rather humorous way The fine art of "Bean-Driven Development" — How not to test your software.

The Quality Duck's Approach to a Zero Bug Policy

I liked Stuart Thomas' explanation of implementing a pragmatic zero-bug policy.

AUTOMATION

Automating Testing with GitHub Actions: Continuous Integration — Part 2

Following the first part that I featured last month, this time Markella Efthymiou demonstrates implementing various test strategies that are also applicable to other CI solutions.

Customising Static Code Analysis for Optimising Internal Tools

Tamás Balog wrote a comprehensive explanation of static code analysis, its benefits, tools, and implementation strategies for better code quality.

Similarly, Frederick Wijayadi Susilo explains what Code Coverage and Static Code Analysis are.

E2E vs UI testing

Do you know the differences between UI and E2E testing? Noemi Ferrera wrote a wonderful explanation, emphasizing the importance of balancing these two test types.

Purify Your Tests

In this detailed overview, Daniel Beskin shows how to make your tests more reliable by avoiding mutable mocks and reducing side effects.

Test Failures Should Be Actionable

Here's a yet another concise and valuable piece of advice by Titus Winters from Google on how to make your assertions clearer.

TOOLS

Best node.js test framework, with benchmarks

As you may know, there are plenty of Node.js test tools. But how do they compare and which one is the fastest? Roman Kushyn did a helpful analysis.

Cluecumber and what I have learned from being an open source maintainer

Here's an interesting story by Benjamin Bischoff about the lessons learned from contributing to an open-source BDD test reporting tool — Cluecumber.

Ideas to speed up Playwright End-to-End tests? (Typescript, GitHub Actions)

It's convenient to write tests with Playwright — but what if you want to make them run faster? You'll find a few pieces of advice from the community in this Reddit thread.

Additionally, Thananjayan Rajasekaran explains how to use Custom Assertions in Playwright.

Top 5 DevTools Features QA Beginners Might Miss

Chrome DevTools is the tester's friend when it comes to testing and debugging web apps. Tina Chenska outlines several important features that you may find particularly handy.

Swiss Army knife of API testing — curl

Sometimes you need to quickly test your API — so why not use a simple tool for that? Chamila Ambahera describes the popular CLI tool — curl.

VIDEOS

Teams without Software Tester — How can they survive?

In the past, I've shared some insights about teams without dedicated testers (here and here). In this 16-minute recording, Daniel Knott greatly complements this topic with his thoughts.

AND...

A tricky test case... 😂

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.

Issue 220 May 18th 2024