Welcome to the 86th issue!

This week, I stumbled upon Phil Crosby’s Four Absolutes of Quality described by Bob Marshall. It reminded me about how much we can learn about quality management from the past.

I once mentioned a great documentary about the famous Japanese approach to quality and I feel it's the right moment to resurface it. It's simply brilliant.

Furthermore, you might also be interested in Phil Crosby's timeless book Quality is Free. I've just added it to my to-read list.

Happy testing!

Dawid Dylowicz

Michael Bolton shared a great article explaining why categorising testing (and testers) into "automated" and "manual" is not exhaustive nor right.

On a similar note, Nicolas Carlo explains What's the difference between Regression Tests, Characterization Tests, and Approval Tests?.

This is a great article for anyone interested in measuring a system's performance. Simme Aronsson shows how to measure Service Levels Indicators, Objectives and Agreements and how to plan for Error Budgets.

It may sound like a simple question to answer but Gregory Paciga correctly noticed there's more to that. It's hard to disagree!

Callum Akehurst-Ryan gives a great example of how to properly test acceptance criteria.

And if you happen to find a bug, Yuliia Kuprii advises on How To Describe a Defect So Everyone Could Understand.

Yannis Ragkavas reflects on his approach to testing (or lack of) when he was a software developer and shares a few accurate pieces of advice on how it can be improved.

Speaking of developers, Gaurav Singh put a lot of effort into explaining Who the heck is an SDET?.

Testing in Java? Vandeilson Nobre shows some handy examples of how to use JUnit parameters to enhance your tests.

And there's more. Philip Riecks wrote an accurate article about Common Pitfalls When Testing Spring Boot Applications.

Here's a good reminder from Marcelo Soares that the test coverage by itself doesn't say much about the quality of tests.

And for more, check out Bogdan Ivanov's article about 5 Common Mistakes in Test Automation.

Testing native mobile apps with JavaScript-based frameworks? Why not! Nathan Krishnan shows how to do it using WebdriverIO and TypeScript.

This is a great example of how BDD should be used in test automation. Hats off, Román Segador!

Moreover, Pallabee Putatunda wrote a nice guide to Modern Web Testing using Cypress and Cucumber.

Martin Thoma gives an overview of HTTPie — a handy command-line tool for quick API testing. I find it a bit friendlier to use than its popular alternative — cURL.

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

Paul Gerrard continues his great series on testing tools and in this week's article, he wrote about test runners. Great read.

However, always be mindful to choose The Right Tool For The Right Job, as Gil Zilberfeld reminds.

And finally, keep in mind Isabel Evans's conclusion that Usability is where software testing tools fall short.

While gRPC is getting more and more popular, it's worth keeping an eye on it. Here's a good guide by Oleksandr Romanov to performance testing with Gatling.

In this 22-minute video, Casey Rosenthal gives a high-level overview and advice on the importance of embracing Continuous Verification and Chaos Engineering.

If you're curious to see how Playwright and Selenium compare in terms of speed and implementation, watch Victor Vrinceanu explaining all the differences and showing code examples.

One of the best stories of a bug... EVER 🤣

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.

Dawid Dylowicz