The Software Testing Club put up the seventh episode from my mini-series The Deliberate Tester. In the seventh episode Peter joins a Testing Dojo at a Lunch & Learn and gets to know how to learn collaboratively on a testing team.
Category Archives: Testing
Software Testing
Third-party library integration with Robot Framework’s jar
Personally, I arrived at my new company, and already got some new duties to fulfill. One of them was to get a GWT application under test. Since I made great experiences with Robot Framework and its Selenium Library while automating ParkCalc a while back, I decided to try it out for the application.
Besides all of the awkwardness coming form not generated ids on the xhtml of the web-pages, I finally got a first spike solution to run. After some more refactoring steps, I decided to provide some automation of the tests, so that my colleagues are able to work with it as well. Since the application is developed with eclipse in Java, I wanted to use a similar infrastructure to get the tests automated. Thereby, I decided to try out the packaged jar file of Robot Framework 2.5.x. This went amazingly smooth. Since I had to integrate the Selenium Library with the jar file, I was wondering, if this will be reusable, and what I need to do for it. The UserGuide describes, that I should repackage the jar, but this step I wanted to explicitly avoid.
Instead, I took a closer look. In order to try out the simplest thing that could possibly work, I created a lib directory in the eclipse that I had created, and added the jar file to that lib directory. Inside the lib directory I created a Lib directory (with upper case L), where I copied the SeleniumLibrary directory from my local installation, containing the python files necessary for the integration as well as the Selenium Server library in it’s own lib directory.
I was amazed that this was all I needed to do in order to integrate the Robot Framework jar file (which encapsulated jython) with the Selenium Library. I even tried to rename the installed Selenium Library just to be sure, that this was indeed all I needed to do, and was amazed when I found out that the packaged jython already created .class files for the Selenium Library python classes.
All I then needed to do, was to create an ant build script, which simply invokes the jarfile, and now I can call this from the build server of our continuous integration system. Wonderful, isn’t it?
The case for slack
Some while ago, J.B. Rainsberger posted a case for slack, and that you might be sabotaging your peoples training. I think it was Kent Beck who pointed me to the self-similarity of nature in eXtreme programming explained. In this post I’m going to take a closer look on how we learn, and how nature is self-similar in this regard, and what we may derive from this.
10 things us testers need to stop doing!
This has been on my mind for quite some time. During the past week I read three blog entries which reminded me to write this down. First of all there was Vesna Leonard who wrote that she was not like any other qa or tester that her colleagues had met. Second, Lanette Creamer wrote a tale of two testers. Finally Alan Page blogged about the Tester DNA. Having referenced my inspirations, let’s take a look on things that us testers do, but should stop doing, and most importantly why.
Continue reading 10 things us testers need to stop doing!What if God was counting?
Two weeks back, my niece was christened. During the ceremony the priest read the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. I was amazed to see parallels between management in software testing and a 2000 year old story. Here’s the story as I found it online by searching for it:
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed abouta himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(see Luke 18)
Now, the priest explained how God would look at both of them. In fact, the Pharisee tells all what he has achieved and how disciplined he is about his religion. He uses 31 words to describe that he is superior to some other folks, and names a few, even referencing the tax collector as a bad example. On the other hand, the tax collector knows his wrong steps, and asks for mercy in barely 6 words.
The priest continued that God could judge the prayers from both based on the number of words they used to reach him. Clearly, the Pharisee looks better here, as he has the larger number of words, 31, as opposed to the 6 words from the tax collector. But instead, we get told, that God rather takes a look on the one who knows about his failings, and simply asks for forgiveness. Wonderful.
That was when I started to wonder whether God would be counting lines of code or test cases…
Summer hole
In Germany there is a smaller stream of news hitting the newspapers. It’s called the summer hole in that time. I seem to encounter a similar trouble right now. Though there are now some updates that I would like to share. August so far is pretty busy, but I felt that I couldn’t keep these any longer than necessary.
First off, the Software Testing Club published chapter 6 of my little tale about a tester. Check out The Deliberate Tester chapter 6 called The Presentation here. I have planned two more chapters so far. In case there won’t be any new ideas, I will end this mini series by then.
Second, I scheduled a webinar with the EuroSTAR conferences during their webinar week. The webinar will be on Alternative Paths for Self-education in Software Testing and it will be on September 10th 2010, 2pm London Local Time. Check out this link to check when this will be your local time. The talk will be a shorter version of the conference presentation, filled with topics such as Cem Kaner’s Black-box software testing course, Bach’s buccaneer scholar lessons, as well as Weekend Testing and the Miagi-Do school of software testing.
Last, but not least, we are currently in serious trouble in the European Weekend Testing chapter. Given the fact that two of our most active facilitators change jobs over summer, we need help to continue this great community. So, in case you are interested in helping us out, generating new ideas, or just helping with session preparations, please get in touch with me. Thanks. It’s engaging, and it’s a learning in its own rights.
Quality, Value, and how all of this might help
Over the past week I was surprised to receive a pingback from Eusebiu Blindu on Quality is value to some person at some time. He raises some very conscious thoughts about the term quality, value, and the Relative Rule from Michael Bolton, so make sure to read it, as I will explain some nuances from the Quality Software Management Series from Jerry Weinberg that should explain the pieces I left out so far.
Continue reading Quality, Value, and how all of this might helpQuality is value to some person at some time
Recently a discussion on the famous quote from Jerry Weinberg on
Quality is value to some person.
arose. I already mentioned it some time earlier restating that quality is ambiguous as different people understand different things when they hear the word quality.
Continue reading Quality is value to some person at some timeAnswers to an interview questionnaire
Parimala Shankaraiah, the curious tester, wrote a blog entry on hiring testers. In it, she references a questionnaire for interviewing new testers. Taking a closer look into it, I felt the urge to answer the questionnaire. Follow me along while I visit the 25 questions there, though I’m sure it’ll take me more than the 1.5 hours indicated there, so I’m sure to get some penalty points deducted.
Continue reading Answers to an interview questionnaireParkCalc automation – Keyword-driven tests in FitNesse
To conclude the ParkCalc mini-series, I choose to work through test automation using keywords with FitNesse. As I was using Selenium mostly with RobotFramework, I decided to use Selenesse for the integration into the FitNesse environment. Here is the write-up as I implement the tests.
Continue reading ParkCalc automation – Keyword-driven tests in FitNesse