My mother passed away in December after fighting a progressively debilitating disease for many years. The past months have been a time of reflection for me. My mother taught me many things about life, instilling principles that have made me not only a better person but also a better test automation engineer. In this episode, I’d like to share a few of those things with you.
This is the 50th episode of Test Talks, and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to feature an interview with the CEO of TestTalks’ Exclusive Sponsor, Sauce Labs. In this episode you’ll discover why Sauce Is Boss as I speak with the new CEO of Sauce Labs, Charles Ramsey about his vision for Sauce Labs and how Sauce's awesome products and services can help you succeed with all your testing, automation & CI efforts.
Protractor is an automated testing framework for testing AngularJS applications in the browser. In this episode you'll discover all the benefits of using Protractor to test your AngularJs application as we speak with Nate Taylor, author of the PluralSight course's Introduction to Protractor and TDD as a Design Too l....
Want to know what a bucket of bottlenecks is? You’ll find out today as we talk with PerfBytes ’ Mark Tomlinson. Not performance testing your application can be dangerous. Don't be left singing the performance testing blues after being featured on the PerfBytes’ News of the Damned. In this episode the Performance Sherpa, Mark Tomlinson who has over 20 years of testing experience, helps guide those new to performance testing over the rough terrain of getting started with their performance efforts ...
Can automation perform actual testing? What’s the difference between test automation and automation in testing? Discover a mind-shift that will help you improve your testing efforts and take your automation to the next level. In this episode, your friendly tester will free you from the common misunderstandings and myths of test automation and leave you smiling. Check it out!
The Apple Watch is coming. Are you ready? With the release of the much-anticipated watch happening in less than a month, I thought it would be fun to talk about iOS testing. This episode should help you get up-to-speed with iOS testing and start thinking about how you’re going to test Apple Watch apps. Andy Obusek is an iOS mobile developer at the popular Email marketing firm AWeber, and he shares some of his favorite IOS tips and tricks with us.
For the past few years I've been trying to promote the idea that not every automation test should be a UI test, and have been focusing more on the types of tests that can be performed below the UI, like API testing. With the rise of the Internet of Things, this type of headless testing is only going to become more popular. One of the tools I use all the time for REST-based API testing is rest-assured. In this episode, we’ll talk to the creator of the open-source tool’s REST-Assured, Power Mock a...
Have you ever wondered how testing is done at big companies like Microsoft? Curious to know what it takes to succeed with testing and automation across a huge enterprise that has bunch of different products and technologies? Alan has seen it all, and shares his years of testing wisdom. Your ears will be ringing from all the test automation awesomeness knowledge bombs Alan will drop on you in this episode.
Test Automation is difficult. It’s even harder if you need to perform any sort of visual validations in your test script. It’s often easier and more reliable to make visual validation type test into manual tests. So how do you solve this pixel predicament? If you have a “mission critical” or complex visual application that needs to have many visual elements tested, you should check out Applitools. With its sophisticated visual algorithm, Applitools makes visual validation easy and stress-free....
A New Model For Testing With more and more companies making the move to shift-left in their development processes, the thinking skills that many testers possess need to be unlocked and shared across the whole organization. Paul's new model can get us all thinking about testing as early as possible in the development life cycle. Discover how we can apply the tester’s mindset to the ever-changing development landscape that includes thing like the Internet of Things and Big Data. http://www.testtal...
Microsoft is about to release Windows 10, which many are describing as a game changer due to a bunch of innovative new features including a virtual reality headset called HoloLens and a new web browser named Spartan. Windows 10 will also have a host of new APIs that will allow developers to create applications that can run across multiple platforms. Are you ready to test Windows 10? Get an early start and listen to discover what Windows 10 means for testers.
Are you a tester who’s trying to automate something that your normal test automation tool is not recognizing? Or are you a gamer looking to create a gaming bot? Maybe you’re a combination of both. If any of those apply, this episode is for you. Today I’ll be Test Talking about the open-source, image based tool Sikuli with its core developer and maintainer, Raimund Hocke. I think this is one of the most inspiring Test Talks to date because Raimund started the Sikulix project later in life, at a t...
In this episode you will discover how to create realistic performance tests that will enable your company to release applications in the wild that perform as expected. Scott Moore, a performance testing consultant and former CEO of Northway solutions, shares with us how to avoid red alerts and getting stuck in a performance testing black hole by teaching us the black art of performance testing.
Do you have a sinking feeling that your test automation efforts are not quite right? When looking around in the industry are you starting to see that everyone else is facing the same issues? Lets face it there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we most of us approach testing and automation. There are a lot of digital disruption coming that is going to force us to change the way we think about testing and automation. It’s a brave new world for testers, so get ready to learn how to do "...
SmartBear’s API Readiness Platform: Ready! API SmartBear recently released a new API testing tool named Ready! API. But I think that like with any new tool/rebranding effort things can get a little confusing. That’s why I asked Mike Giller, a technical engineer at SmartBear, to appear on the TestTalks show to let us know exactly what Ready! API is and how we can use it to automate our API tests. Mike also shares with us all the cool new features of Ready! API and reveals SmartBear's vision for t...
Do you want to take your career (and life) to the next level? Discover how to make this your best year ever with John Sonmez, the author of Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual . In this episode John, who I’ve dubbed “the hardest working developer in the software business”, shares with us his best tips for becoming a successful software developer/tester....
The Cucumber Book – Behavior-Driven Development for Testers and Developers Are you trying to get up to speed on Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), but are finding all the information hard to digest? When you’re in a meeting do you wonder why everyone suddenly has a craving for cucumbers? Are you responsible for test automation and want to know how it all fits in BDD? Do you want to know what level of detail your BDD scenarios should be written in? In this episode, you’ll hear the answer to these...
Agile Testing If you’ve resolved to start your Agile testing efforts off right in 2015, then this episode is for you. You’ll discover what foundational principles you’ll need for better Agile practices in the new year. Janet shares with us a bunch of awesome Agile tips and tricks to help those who are trying to improve their current Agile Testing efforts, as well as anyone who wants to start their 2015 testing projects using good, solid Agile testing best practices.
Top Three Testing Trends for 2015 In this episode, I recap 2014 as well as break out my crystal ball to define what I see as the top testing trends for 2015 – information you’ll need to know in order to succeed in the New Year. I also share with you my top three must-read books for 2015 as well as the top three tools that will help you have the most productive, automation-awesomest year ever.
SmartBear's TestComplete SmartBear's TestComplete Platform helps you create repeatable and accurate automated tests across multiple devices, platforms and environments quickly and easily. The latest version of TestComplete is now even better with its support of Selenium WebDriver and unit testing. Today we’ll talk about all things test automation-related with TestComplete.
Debugging with Fiddler Have you ever wished for a tool that was easy to use and customize that would help you debug and security test your web applications? How awesome would it be if that tool was also free? Believe it or not, there is such a tool —Fiddler. Fiddler is a web debugging proxy platform that monitors and modifies web traffic. This awesome freeware tool helps you to inspect traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming and outgoing data.
Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices Nothing is more soul crushing than having a test suite that is all over the place and just fails randomly. If you have ever felt this way, I’ve got the cure for all your test automation flakyness blues. In this episode Dima Kovalenko, author of Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices shares with us the best strategies to create reusable, maintainable, stress-free Selenium tests....
The Benefits of Testing Legacy Code Sure. We all love to test against the latest and greatest, shiny new web applications. But what happens if you need to test older legacy code? Could there actually be a benefit to being involved in testing older code? You might be surprised by the answer. Not only can working on older code give you added job security, but it also might expand your skills – enabling you to tackle any testing effort, new or old. Today we’ll be talking with the man sometimes refe...
Are you an automation engineer using Selenium and have a requirement that forces you to have to test against IE browsers? If so, I’m guessing you’re probably frustrated with various flaky issues that don’t occur in any other browser except Internet Explorer. If you want to learn the secrets of how to succeed with Selenium IE automation, you’ve come to the right place. Today we’ll be test talking with Jim Evans. Jim is one of the key contributors to the Selenium project. He is also the man behind...
Test Automation with CodedUI Do you need to automate both browser-based and window- based applications? Not sure which tool to use? I think one of the most overlooked tools for test automation is Microsoft CodedUI. In this episode Marcel de Vries, author of the PluralSight Course Test Automation with CodedUI , will help you discover all the reasons why CodedUI might be the perfect tool for you to use in the creation of your automation awesomeness....
What do you do when QTP or UFT doesn’t automatically recognize an object in your application? I know how frustrating this can be. Before you give up, in my experience, these are the first ten things you should try/check.
Does your company practice some wicked test automation anti-patterns that make your skin crawl? Do you feel like you are surrounded by mindless, automation- ignorant zombies? Grab your silver bullets, crucifix and holy water as we take a look at the horror of the top six automation anti-patterns. Discover how to drive a wooden stake into the heart of these evil practices and rid your tests of them forever.
PhantomJS Cookbook Today I’m inviting you to join me in the test automation kitchen as Rob Friesel, author of the PhantomJS CookBook gets ready to serve up some tasty PhantomJS automation awesomeness. We’ll be sampling some of his popular recipes and discovering how to succeed with PhantomJs....
In this episode you will discover why API testing I so important and why you need to be ahead of the API testing curve sooner rather than later.
Test Management using QAComplete In this episode, Masha Kozinets, Director of Product Management for QAComplete and TestComplete, and Jeffrey Martin, an engineer at SmartBear, go over how a test management tool like QAComplete can help you achieve test automation awesomeness with the ability to plan, organize and schedule all your tests.
