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“I can train anyone to do the automation. This changes
what kind of skillset I need with an
automation tester. It’s very easy to
maintain when you have such a tool compared
to maintaining the direct Selenium code.”
– NIH
Rethinking the Testing Pyramid
Early in my career I read an incredible book that filled me with hope about software. The book is called Peopleware, it is thirty-three years old and still in print. A highlight of my career has been working in a small way with Tim Lister, one of the co-authors. The other co-author is Tom Demarco,
Starting Points for Test-Automation
Retrofitting a test automation tool on top of an existing application is no joke. As Fred Brooks puts it in the software engineering classic The Mythical Man Month, many a dinosaur has died in those tar pits. Unlike the dinosaurs of old, we keep re-creating the problem with automation projects. Even if we start the development
New Tech has made Test Re-Use a Reality
You hear it at the conference, in the session with the performance consultant. It all sounds so helpful. She points out that you already have functional test automation. Those run through realistic scenarios, end to end. So put them on a grid, maybe in the cloud, then use them as the basis of your load
The Value of Frequent Releases
The Agile Manifesto has twelve principles, that include “Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.” For its time, the Manifesto was revolutionary. Today, that speed seems quaint. Agile Machismo has taken over, with one-week sprints better than two, and continuous deployment,
Continuous Deployment Explained
If you have a secret hobby of arguing over words, or perhaps worse, injecting meaning that is incorrect into a technical term, well … software might be the place for you. Consider Quality Assurance, or QA, which is something often used by people who do not have change permissions on the version control system, nor
Platform or Point Solution?
A few years ago, it was popular for companies to create “suites” that were really just a bunch of small tools, purchased, and bundled together. Often the technology did not interoperate. Many of those companies are no longer in business, or else they have been purchased by a MegaCorp. None of that is what I
Machine Learning Hype in Testing: Separating Fact from Fiction
Three computer systems, working on the same problem separately, all try to solve a problem. If at least two come to the same conclusion, then everything can proceed. If, however, there are three different answers, then humans need to intervene to figure out what is really going on. Is this fact or fiction? If you
