Issue 248

COMMENT

Welcome to the 248th issue!

I've always valued Android for its clear and open guides on how to do testing in that ecosystem.

So I was more than pleased to see the news from Jose Alcérreca that they've released new official testing strategies for Android.

Including:

Testing strategies,
Improving test stability,
Guides on screenshot and performance testing, and more.

Happy testing! 🙂

NEWS

5 Essential Tips to Accelerate Your Software Testing Career

Reflecting on his own journey, Barry Ehigiator shares several valuable tips for testers, including the importance of understanding products, collaboration and continuous learning.

AI QuickStart for Testers

If you're wondering how to apply AI in your daily life as a tester, Jason Arbon shares a practical overview.

On the other hand, Logan Jorgensen explains The Future of Testing LLMs: You Can't Test Chaos with Constants.

Contract testing — what (not) to test for (Part 1)

Struggling to find the balance in contract testing? Bas Dijkstra offers advice on effective testing of HTTP-based integrations.

What is software testing, really?

Testing isn't just executing code. Lena Pejgan Nyström highlights the tester's role in challenging assumptions, refining processes, and supporting quality across the entire SDLC.

Furthermore, Ard Kramer suggests that Testers Don't Mitigate Risks. Instead, their main role is to highlight those risks.

Visualizing Quality: How Old are Your Bugs?

In this practical guide, Lina Zubyte explains how keeping clean bug backlogs, as well as tracking bug average age metrics, can help teams focus on quality improvements.

AUTOMATION

Can We Automate All the Things? Exploring the Limits of Testing in Software Systems

That's a fair question, and while you may guess the answer, Jitesh Gosai has some great insights into handling risks, uncertainties and the role of exploratory testing.

I also recommend going through the two related Reddit threads:

Effective Android Testing: Patterns, Practices, and Tips

Noh Kyung-eun shares a software engineer's point of view on the importance of testability in Android apps (and any software, really), which in turn enables modular test structures to follow.

It may also help to Benefit from a richer Page Object Model with abstract classes and functions, as Mike Harris suggests.

How To Turn Red Energy Into Strategy And Migrate All Your Tests While You're At It

Attila Vágó shares the highs and lows of migrating over 140 Ruby-based Cucumber tests to a Java-based test automation framework.

Rethinking Testing: Transforming Overhead into Impact

"Testing is not just a quality assurance step — it’s a development accelerator."

Berkay Giriş makes several great points about how testing makes everyone's life easier in the long term.

Speeding Up UI Tests 4x While Reducing Costs

Mikhail Zinchenko provides a detailed overview of how they reduced the execution time of 500 Android UI tests from 1 hour to 15 minutes.

TOOLS

API Testing Showdown. Postman vs Pytest (Part 5)

This is yet another good overview by Nikita Belkovskiy, this time exploring Postman's Interceptor and AI features and comparing them to writing API tests in Pytest.

Are ChatGPT or Claude better than Playwright Codegen?

Interesting question! Stefan Judis checks how general-purpose LLM chatbots compare to Playwright Codegen when it comes to the accuracy and effectiveness of generating tests.

Considering migrating from Selenium to Playwright — What are the hard benefits?

If you face a similar dilemma, this is an insightful Reddit discussion about finding solid arguments behind moving from Selenium to Playwright.

In relation to that, Damian Peralta briefly explains: Why should you choose Playwright as your End-to-End testing framework?.

End of Test automation "tools"

Robin Gupta reflects on how the rise of new AI-powered solutions, such as Anthropic's Computer Use, may change the test automation tools landscape.

Furthermore, Ady Stokes explored some Pros and cons of AI-assisted accessibility tools.

BOOKS

Book Review: Software Testing With Generative AI

Another week, another review! Nicola Lindgren shares her impression of the "Software Testing with Generative AI" book by Mark Winteringham, praising the hands-on approach, thoughtful insights, and the list of activities that help testers integrate LLMs into their work.

AND...

Just a casual release day... 🤣

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 248 December 3rd 2024