NEWS
Testing and feedback loops
"When I’m writing a program for the first time, I almost never worry about test coverage early on; instead I worry about setting up infrastructure that lets me cheaply capture any bugs I do find as test cases, and rely on later testing to increase coverage."
Really interesting article from Nelson Elhage who presents a software engineer's point of view on improving coverage over time by using feedback loops from testing. I like the idea.
Risk Coverage: A New Currency for Testing
"If you want fast, accurate assessments of the risks associated with promoting the latest release candidate to production, you need a new currency in testing: Risk coverage needs to replace test coverage."
I've studied computer science, so maths always gets me. Here Wolfgang Platz proves in a mathematical way why the risk-based testing method can give much more insights than simple test coverage. Nice equations and graphs, by the way!
I don’t think that means what you think it means (Enterprise Software Testing Metrics)
I enjoyed this article by Keith Klain where he shares his experience of working with metrics during one of his consulting projects, highlighting what's wrong with attempts to measure quality, and what's important about having valid metrics.
First challenges as a new Product Owner
Software testing is evolving, and so are the roles. Some go towards programming, some choose product. Most recently, Areti Panou has become a Product Owner and she shares her first impressions about the role and how it is coming from software testing background.
New Managers: Creating culture
The second article from the management series by Angela Riggs — an aftermath of her tweet that went viral. This time, she wraps up the advice she got about culture. This is to all of those who manage people, and those who are managed, too. Everyone, I mean, read it!
AUTOMATION
Web UI Automation (Protractor)
Tremendous effort by Thomas Knee who comprehensively explains web UI automation with Protractor. The first part (linked above) is about getting started and setting up the tooling on macOS and Windows platforms.
I highly recommend reading part 2 about framework structure and configuration, and part 3 about creating BDD tests. Truly solid work!
Fluent Builders in Automated Tests
I haven't come across fluent builders before but this step-by-step article by Blake Norrish made the concept perfectly clear to me. In essence, it's making the tests easy to read and write by hiding data when creating domain objects. Kudos!
Practical test strategy for Spring & React application
I couldn't agree more with Sławomir Radzymiński on the test strategy for any backend-frontend system. Great practical advice about tooling and lots of links to actual source code included.
New Microsoft Edge and test automation
If you missed the news, Microsoft has released a brand new Edge browser based on Chromium engine, making it available on all the popular operating systems. Edge on Mac?! Yup, it's happening! But what's up with testing it? Well, Alexander Oliveira Dunn got you covered by creating this really helpful FAQ-style post with answers you may want to see.
9 Top Automation Testing Trends for 2020
Last but not least, Joe Colantonio shared a nice compilation of automation areas that may get more attention this year. Some of the picks surprised me, in a positive way. I mean, AiOps?! How cool would that be!
TOOLS
[API] HttpRider - a lightweight open-source REST API client
@deskriders_twt created a promising cross-platform REST API client that can be used as an alternative to Postman for simpler tasks. And it's open-source!
[Java] JUnit 5.6.0 released
Some good news for those of you using JUnit. After over 4 months of waiting, they've released a brand new 5.6.0 version.
COMMENT
Welcome everyone! 🙌
It's Friday again (time flies, right?) and I'm back with the third issue of Software Testing Weekly!
The great thing about preparing this newsletter is that I discover really amazing resources during my research.
I was surprised to find Manning publications this week (about time, I know). I'm even more surprised by the free book samples that they share. But finding the whole book about unit testing published there for free?! It blew my mind! It's called Unit Testing Principles, Practices and Patterns by Vladimir Khorikov and you can read it here.
Another wonderful thing I've found is this excellent wrap-up of UI testing best practices by Stefano Magni. It's all nicely laid out, and it's open-source - meaning you can contribute to it too. I love it!
Last but not least, a friendly reminder that you can submit a link for the next issue. You can also follow this page on Twitter.
Enjoy the read!
Dawid Dylowicz