Technical debt has to be dealt with on a regular basis to have a healthy product and development team. The impacts of technical debt include emotional drain on engineers and slowing down development and can adversely affect your hiring ability and retention. But really, what is technical debt? Can we measure it? How do we reduce it, and when? James Smith, the CEO of Bugsnag, joins the show to talk about technical debt and all of these questions. Special Guest: James Smith. Sponsored By: AcePytho...
May 15, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 113
"Code is read much more often than it is written." - Guido van Rossum This is true for both production code and test code. When you are trying to understand why a test is failing, you'll be very grateful to the test author if they've taken the care to make it readable. David Seddon came up with 6 principles to help us write more readable tests. We discuss these, as well as more benefits of readable tests. David's 6 Principles of Readable Tests: Profit from the work of others Put naming to work S...
May 08, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 112
In both unittest and pytest, when a test function hits a failing assert, the test stops and is marked as a failed test. What if you want to keep going, and check more things? There are a few ways. One of them is subtests. Python's unittest introduced subtests in Python 3.4. pytest introduced support for subtests with changes in pytest 4.4 and a plugin, called pytest-subtests. Subtests are still not really used that much. But really, what are they? When could you use them? And more importantly, w...
May 02, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 111
Django supports testing out of the box with some cool extensions to unittest. However, many people are using pytest for their Django testing, mostly using the pytest-django plugin. Adam Parkin, who is known online as CodependentCodr , joins us to talk about migrating an existing Django project from unittest to pytest. Adam tells us just how easy this is. Special Guest: Adam Parkin. Sponsored By: PyCharm Professional : Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo C...
Apr 25, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Financial services have their own unique testing development challenges. But they also have lots of the same challenges as many other software projects. Eric Bergemann joins Brian Okken to discuss: Specific testing challenges in the financial services domain CI/CD : Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment TDD : Test Driven Development Confidence from testable applications Testing strategies to add coverage to legacy systems Testing the data and test cases themselves DevOps Continuous testi...
Apr 14, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 109
Apache Spark is a unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. PySpark blends the powerful Spark big data processing engine with the Python programming language to provide a data analysis platform that can scale up for nearly any task. Johnathan Rioux, author of "PySpark in Action", joins the show and gives us a great introduction of Spark and PySpark to help us decide how to get started and decide whether or not to decide if Spark and PySpark are right you. Special Guest: Jonathan ...
Apr 09, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Hypothesis is the Python tool used for property based testing. Hypothesis claims to combine "human understanding of your problem domain with machine intelligence to improve the quality of your testing process while spending less time writing tests." In this episode Alexander Hultnér introduces us to property based testing in Python with Hypothesis. Some topics covered: What is property based testing Thinking differently for property based testing Using hypothesis / property based testing in conj...
Mar 27, 2020•36 min•Season 1Ep. 107
IDEs can help people with automated testing. In this episode, Paul Everitt and Brian discuss ways IDEs can encourage testing and make it easier for everyone, including beginners. We discuss features that exist and are great, as well as what is missing. The conversation also includes topics around being welcoming to new contributors for both open source and professional projects. We talk about a lot of topics, and it's a lot of fun. But it's also important. Because IDEs can make testing Some topi...
Mar 20, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 106
The Test Anything Protocol, or TAP, is a way to record test results in a language agnostic way, predates XML by about 10 years, and is still alive and kicking. Matt Layman has contributed to Python in many ways, including his educational newsletter, and his Django podcast, Django Riffs. Matt is also the maintainer of tap.py and pytest-tap, two tools that bring the Test Anything Protocol to Python. In this episode, Matt and I discuss TAP, it's history, his involvement, and some cool use cases for...
Mar 11, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 105
pytest is awesome by itself. pytest + plugins is even better. In this episode, Anthony Sottile and Brian Okken discuss the top 28 pytest plugins. Some of the plugins discussed (we also mention a few plugins related to some on this list): pytest-cov pytest-timeout pytest-xdist pytest-mock pytest-runner pytest-instafail pytest-django pytest-html pytest-metadata pytest-asyncio pytest-split-tests pytest-sugar pytest-rerunfailures pytest-env pytest-cache pytest-flask pytest-benchmark pytest-ordering ...
Mar 04, 2020•47 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Django is without a doubt one of the most used web frameworks for Python. Lacey Williams Henschel is a Django consultant and has joined me to talk about Django, the Django community, and so much more. Topics: Django The Django Community Django Girls Django Girls Tutorial DjangoCon Software Testing Using tests during learning pytest-django testing Django Wagtail Special Guest: Lacey Williams Henschel. Sponsored By: Raygun : Detect, diagnose, and destroy Python errors that are affecting your custo...
Mar 01, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Harry Percival has completed his second book, "Architecture Patterns with Python". So of course we talk about the book, also known as "Cosmic Python". We also discuss lots of testing topics, especially related to larger systems and systems involving third party interfaces and APIs. Topics Harry's new book, "Architecture Patterns with Python". a.k.a. Cosmic Python TDD : Test Driven Development Test Pyramid Tradeoffs of different architectural choices Mocks and their pitfalls Avoiding mocks Separa...
Feb 27, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Application security is best designed into a system from the start. Anthony Shaw is doing something about it by creating an editor plugin that actually helps you write more secure application code while you are coding. On today's Test & Code, Anthony and I discuss his security plugin, but also application security in general, as well as other security components you need to consider. Security is something every team needs to think about, whether you are a single person team, a small startup,...
Feb 19, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Let's say you have a web application and you want to make some changes to improve it. You may want to A/B test it first to make sure you are really improving things. But really what is A/B testing? That's what we'll find out on this episode with Leemay Nassery. Special Guest: Leemay Nassery. Sponsored By: Oxylabs : Visit oxylabs.io/testandcode to find out more about their services and to apply for a free trial of their Next-Generation Residential Proxies. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
Feb 13, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 100
I play a form of group chess that has some interesting analogies to software development and maintenance of existing systems. This episode explains group chess and explores a few of those analogies. Sponsored By: Raygun : Detect, diagnose, and destroy Python errors that are affecting your customers. With smart Python error monitoring software from Raygun.com, you can be alerted to issues affecting your users the second they happen. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★...
Jan 30, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 99
pytest-testmon is a pytest plugin which selects and executes only tests you need to run. It does this by collecting dependencies between tests and all executed code (internally using Coverage.py) and comparing the dependencies against changes. testmon updates its database on each test execution, so it works independently of version control. In this episode, I talk with testmon creator Tibor Arpas about testmon, about it's use and how it works. Special Guest: Tibor Arpas. Sponsored By: PyCharm Pr...
Jan 21, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 98
This episode is not just a look back on 2019, and a look forward to 2020. Also, 2019 is the end of an amazingly transofrmative decade for me, so I'm going to discuss that as well. top 10 episodes of 2019 10: episode 46 , Testing Hard To Test Applications - Anthony Shaw 9: episode 64 , Practicing Programming to increase your value 8: episode 70 , Learning Software without a CS degree - Dane Hillard 7: episode 75 , Modern Testing Principles - Alan Page 6: episode 72 , Technical Interview Fixes - A...
Dec 31, 2019•24 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Pipelines are used a lot in software projects to automated much of the work around build, test, deployment and more. Thomas Eckert talks with me about pipelines, specifically Azure Pipelines. Some of the history, and how we can use pipelines for modern Python projects. Special Guest: Thomas Eckert. Sponsored By: PyCharm Professional : Try PyCharm Pro with a 4 month free trial. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22 Links: click repo Azure Pipelines Action · Actions · GitHub Marketplace ★ Support this podcast...
Dec 16, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Data science and machine learning are affecting more of our lives every day. Decisions based on data science and machine learning are heavily dependent on the quality of the data, and the quality of the data pipeline. Some of the software in the pipeline can be tested to some extent with traditional testing tools, like pytest. But what about the data? The data entering the pipeline, and at various stages along the pipeline, should be validated. That's where pipeline tests come in. Pipeline tests...
Nov 30, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 95
You've applied for a job, maybe lots of jobs. Depending on the company, you've gotta get through: a resume review a coding challange a phone screen maybe another code example an in person interview If you get the job, and you enjoy the work, awesome, congratulations. If you don't get the job, it'd be really great to know why. Sometimes it isn't because you aren't a skilled engineer. What other reasons are there? Well, that's what we're talking about today. Charity Majors is the cofounder and CTO...
Nov 18, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Andy Knight is the Automation Panda. Andy Knight is passionate about software testing, and shares his passion through public speaking, writing on automationpanda.com, teaching as an adjunct professor, and now also through writing a book and organizing a new regional Python conference. Topics of this episode include: Andy's book on software testing Being an adjunct professor Public speaking and preparing talk proposals including tips from Andy about proposals and preparing for talks PyCarolinas S...
Oct 31, 2019•30 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Cristian Medina wrote an article recently called "Test Engineering Anti-Patterns: Destroy Your Customer Satisfaction and Crater Your Quality By Using These 9 Easy Organizational Practices" Of course, it's sarcastic, and aims to highlight many problems with organizational practices that reduce software quality. The article doesn't go out of character, and only promotes the anti-patterns. However, in this interview, we discuss each point, and the corollary of what you really should do. At least, o...
Oct 20, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 92
Python 3.8.0 final is live and ready to download. On todays episode, we're going to run through what's new, picking out the bits that I think are the most interesting and affect the most people, including new language features standard library changes optimizations in 3.8 Not just the big stuff everyone's already talking about. But also some little things that will make programming Python even more fun and easy. I'm excited about Python 3.8. And really, this episode is to my way to try to get yo...
Oct 16, 2019•21 min•Season 1Ep. 91
pytest 5.2 was just released, and with it, a cool fun feature called dynamic scope fixtures. Anthony Sottile so tilly is one of the pytest core developers, so I thought it be fun to have Anthony describe this new feature for us. We also talk about parametrized testing and really what is fixture scope and then what is dynamic scope. Special Guest: Anthony Sottile. Sponsored By: Raygun : Detect, diagnose, and destroy Python errors that are affecting your customers. With smart Python error monitori...
Oct 11, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Nicholas Tollervey is working toward better ways of teaching programming. His projects include the Mu Editor, PyperCard, and CodeGrades. Many of us talk about problems with software education. Nicholas is doing something about it. Special Guest: Nicholas Tollervey. Sponsored By: Azure Pipelines : Automate your builds and deployments with pipelines so you spend less time with the nuts and bolts and more time being creative. Many organizations and open source projects are using Azure Pipelines alr...
Sep 28, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 89
Tools like error monitoring, crash reporting, and performance monitoring are tools to help you create a better user experience and are fast becoming crucial tools for web development and site reliability. But really what are they? And when do you need them? You've built a cool web app or service, and you want to make sure your customers have a great experience. You know I advocate for utilizing automated tests so you find bugs before your customers do. However, fast development lifecycles, and q...
Sep 21, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 88
There's a cool feature of pytest called parametrization. It's totally one of the superpowers of pytest. It's actually a handful of features, and there are a few ways to approach it. Parametrization is the ability to take one test, and send lots of different input datasets into the code under test, and maybe even have different output checks, all within the same test that you developed in the simple test case. Super powerful, but something since there's a few approaches to it, a tad tricky to get...
Sep 11, 2019•19 min•Season 1Ep. 87
You've incorporated software testing into your coding practices and know from experience that it helps you get your stuff done faster with less headache. Awesome. Now your colleagues want in on that super power and want to learn testing. How do you help them? That's where Josh Peak is. He's helping his team add testing to their workflow to boost their productivity. That's what we're talking about today on Test & Code. Josh walks us through 4 maxims of developing software tests that help grow...
Sep 06, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Good software testing strategy is one of the best ways to save developer time and shorten software development delivery cycle time. Software test suites grow from small quick suites at the beginning of a project to larger suites as we add tests, and the time to run the suites grows with it. Fortunately, pytest has many tricks up it's sleave to help shorten those test suite times. Niklas Meinzer is a software developer that recentely wrote an article on optimizing test suites. In this episode, I ...
Aug 26, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Adafruit enables beginners to make amazing hardware/software projects. With CircuitPython, these projects can now use Python. The combination of Python's ease of use and Adafruit's super cool hardware and a focus on a successful beginner experience makes learning to write code that controls hardware super fun. In this episode, Scott Shawcroft, the project lead, talks about the past, present, and future of CircuitPython, and discusses the focus on the beginner. We also discuss contributing to the...
Aug 20, 2019•36 min•Season 1Ep. 84
