Issue 71

COMMENT

Welcome to the 71st issue!

Today I'm excited to share with you that I'm taking on a new challenge.

I'm moving to Paris to join Onfido as a Staff Test Engineer!

It's a wide role but mostly focused on functional and performance testing of microservices, many of which are using machine learning.

This is both a challenging and an exciting opportunity for me to learn about new aspects of software testing. Hopefully, I'll be able to share more about it with you in near future.

Now, you may wonder: what does it mean for Software Testing Weekly?

Rest assured — it's staying as is. And I'll do my best to keep delivering top-quality news to you.

So with that in mind, happy testing! 😊

NEWS

Are you really a Test Coach?

The modern role of testers is not only to test software but also to help others test software. Maria Kedemo describes this in more detail, focusing on coaching and being a subject matter expert.

How a Series of Screw-Ups Has Led Us to Improved Quality Assurance

I liked this series of lessons that Pavel Kiselev learned the hard way, based on these interesting stories.

How to do testing when nothing is clear

The community on Reddit has given some nice pieces of advice to someone feeling a bit lost after joining a company as a software tester. This is heart-warming!

You might be already familiar with the test pyramid but Mahesh Arali broke it down into many components and described in detail what activities and what parts of tests can be implemented at each stage. This is a handy infographic.

Why Cross Browser Testing is Important

What browsers should you prioritise testing on? Is IE11 still relevant? When shouldn't you do cross-browser testing? In this fine article, Wes Silverstein answered all these questions, and much more.

AUTOMATION

A Developer’s Guide to Performance Testing

James Collerton not only explained performance testing types in detail but also prepared a bunch of simple code examples that can help you understand what it's all about.

Cross Browser Testing With TestCafe and CircleCI

In this top-quality guide, Dennis Martinez shows us a reliable way of setting up and running web UI tests in the cloud.

How to send and receive emails in automation tests

Oleksandr Romanov shared examples of integrating with GMail API to automate email testing.

And if you're wondering if email testing is important at all, Dmytro Zaichenko delivered a solid answer to this question: Should QAs Care About Email Testing?.

Mobile Test Automation Best Practices

If you test mobile apps, you might be interested in this detailed guide by Anand Bagmar. There are lots of good tips ranging from the test strategy to tooling and execution in the cloud.

The do’s and don’ts of integration testing

Neil Syrett did a great job describing how to perform automated integration testing properly and what to be mindful of during implementation.

TOOLS

API Testing with Thunder Client

Just a week ago, I mentioned the news about the Thunder Client. And now it's Ryan Howard who gives us a more detailed overview of the tool's features and explains how it compares to its competitors (looking at you, Postman!).

Is the RSpec DSL making your tests harder to read?

Ever used Rspec — the BDD test runner for Ruby? I did. And as it turns out, I happened to use it wrongly. Lewis Jones explains the common anti-patterns.

Python Test Automation: Six Options for More Efficient Tests

And if you use Python for testing, Eric Goebelbecker got you covered with this useful list of tools and frameworks that may come in handy.

Where Gherkin sucks

"All that glitters is not gold" goes the saying and it rarely applies so well to a tool as it does to Cucumber. Alessandro Arcella describes what are the most common misconceptions and misuses of it and its domain-specific language — Gherkin.

BOOKS

Perfect Software and Other Illusions about Testing: Lessons Learned from the book

Perfect Software — And Other Illusions about Testing is a timeless classic and Victoria Markosyan shared a few insightful lessons learned from that book.

VIDEOS

Software Testing Expert Talks

If you prefer video format for learning about software testing-related matters such as certain tools, approaches or methodologies, here's a playlist of talks with experts led by Ajay Lunia.

AND...

Stress testing at its best... 🤣

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 71 May 14th 2021