Issue 46

COMMENT

Welcome to the 46th issue!

You know what? Software Testing community is simply great.

There are many amazing people who put a huge effort into creating content that serves everyone for free, such as blog posts, podcasts, videos, presentations, newsletters, tools and so on.

Software Testing Weekly wouldn't exist without them.

So it's wonderful to see a project like Tester Of The Day by Ben Dowen which celebrates those who contribute to the community.

It's very inspiring to read all these well-deserved shout-outs and I hope it will inspire you to do something as well.

So... maybe write your first article and send me a link? 😊

Happy testing!

NEWS

10 Actionable Tips to Excel as a Test Automation Engineer

I found this helpful list of ten tips on excelling as a test automation engineer by Sumon Dey. So I thought you might like it, too.

Career Roadmap for Functional Test Automation Developers

There are many areas every test automation engineer should excel in and in this article, Babu Manickam presents a roadmap for test automation engineers, covering specialisations of front-end, back-end, cloud and more.

But what I liked the most is what he shared at the end of the article. It's this full map of the career path. Now, that's something!

Cunning Strategies for Getting Out of a Testing Rut

Stuck with new ideas for testing? Simon Knight prepared a handy solution that can inspire you to look at the same testing problem from a completely new angle. And there's one for every second of a minute. All you need is a watch and this list. It's clever and dead-simple — and that's why I like it!

Excellent Software Testing

I liked the way Ingo Philipp used 18 software testing personas to visualise how one can excel in software testing.

Reviewing Capgemini’s "World Quality Report 2020-21"

Lee Hawkins delved into the recent World Quality Report and came up with a thorough analysis that he described and shared with us in this article. There are some interesting findings in there.

Independently, Ericka Chickowski reviewed the same report to conclude on how QA's role broadens: 5 takeaways from the World Quality Report.

Why your QA team should be just as friendly with UX as they are with developers

Gareth Thomas explains why cooperation with Design/UX teams is crucial for software testers and how it can be done effectively by shifting both left and right. Rightly so!

AUTOMATION

API testing with Java and REST Assured

If you're planning on doing test automation in Java, this two-part series by Dennis Whalen on API testing with open-source REST Assured is a great way to start. The second part is here.

Creating A Test Automation Portfolio: UI Web Browser Testing Using C#, Selenium Webdriver 4

I very much enjoyed Beth Marshall's series on building a test automation portfolio and I'm sad it's come to an end. In the last part, it's particularly interesting to see the latest alpha version of Selenium 4 in action.

Code review checklist

As a tester who worked closely with developers, I've always tried to participate in code reviews. Thanks to this handy checklist by Anna Sharkova, it's going to be even more effective.

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

Performance testing gRPC services

REST, GraphQL, Webhooks — chances are you've heard of them. But what about gRPC? While it might not be a widely known way to interact with services yet, it's going to get more and more relevant in the era of 5G and Internet of Things.

So it's good to know that performance testing tools are already adapting to testing it, as demonstrated in this guide by Simon Aronsson.

Test Data Factory: Why and How to Use

Elias Nogueira shared this wonderful guide on building a test data factory, including lots of Java code snippets and full examples of how to apply it to both Web and API projects.

Stop the Retries in Tests & Reruns of Failing Tests

What I liked about Anand Bagmar's article is not only that it shows why flakiness is an issue that shouldn't be solved by frequently used test retries (which are built into most test runners) but also provides some really helpful pieces of advice on how to track down the real causes.

TOOLS

On codeless test automation tools

There are more and more testing tools that promise codeless test automation but are they the salvation from coding that we may hope for? Before taking them for granted, it might be worth to get familiar with this concise and sobering opinion coming from Christian Baumann.

How to Gather Your Test Automation Results With ReportPortal

ReportPortal is an open-source tool for aggregating test results and this decent guide by Dennis Martinez shows how to set it up with TestCafe.

AND...

Machine Learning algorithms can be deadly... 😅