My take on Agile

In my blog exploration on testing I see that it seems that testing has changed in how it is done over the years. I am still green when it comes to testing and well the development process in general so I can only speak on what I read about and the limited testing that I ave actually done so far. I am looking forward to see how this blog evolve over not only this semester, but my career. For this week I chose to talk a little about Agile development and testing.

I have noticed in a few articles that some companies, well maybe more than some have split teams that don’t communicate with each other effectively or at all in some cases. When I say teams I am talking about testing and dev teams. What happens is people end up passing the buck when something doesn’t go right or the customer runs into issues with the product. What I like about the Agile methodology is that the testers or at least someone from the team is in with the dens so unit testing can be written when they decide to make changes to the code or what not. The blog article that I read had explained that in the company talked about there were big issues because there wasn’t any transparency between teams for a while and that once they adopted the agile style, things started to turn around.

All in all, from what I can gather this seems like a great ideology to follow and lends to a better office environment and better over all cohesiveness. I look forward to actually putting some of these techniques into practice in the future and get excited as I read and do and learn more every day.

Defining Agile:

https://thoughtsontest.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/defining-agile/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

Software Testing Help Blog:

http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/agile-retrospective-meetings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Softwaretestinghelp+%28softwaretestinghelp%29

Write Clean Code For Your Tests:

https://iamalittletester.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/write-clean-code-for-your-tests-by-using-the-separation-of-concerns-principle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

The Evolution of The Testing Pyramid:

http://james-willett.com/2016/09/the-evolution-of-the-testing-pyramid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

My Unexpected Journey To Becoming a Tester:

http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/my-journey-to-becoming-a-software-tester/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Softwaretestinghelp+%28softwaretestinghelp%29

A review of some testing techniques

I have been doing some reading on different testing techniques and will briefly go over a few of them here this week. The first is pair testing. I had never heard of this before, but the concept is rather simple, which I will quote from the blog. “If you have an idea, give your keyboard to your pair and explain what you want to do.”, so basically you pair up with someone and one of you outlines what the test needs to do and the idea behind it and the other person writes and performs the tests and vice versa. I think that this could definitely be useful in certain circumstances. I often have ideas on things and how I would like to do them but sometimes find it hard to actually get it out and end up getting insight on how to do it from a friend or colleague.

The next thing I came across that I found interesting was a blog on Javascript unit testing automation using React components. Facebook describes React as “ A Javascript library for builing user interfaces.”. The component that the blog talks about is the React TestUtils component. There are a couple of ways the utilities are used. Rendering them into a Document Object Model(DOM) or Shallow rendering. Using the DOM method, the component you are testing gets loaded into a fake DOM making it able to run the tests you want on your component. The Shallow rendering on the other hand didn’t seem to be as useful. It allows testing without the DOM, but only allowed testing of an output component. I have some experience with Javascript so I plan on possibly taking advantage of some of the test utilities when I do.

Next up on the list is test driven development. This concept seems to me to be an effective testing technique. If you can come up with tests for what you want to build it can make it easier to actually build in a sense. I have barely scratched the surface of this methodology, but am looking forward to learning more about it. In the introduction the writer described two rules. 1. Write a failing automated test before writing any code. 2. Remove duplication. How to use those two rules is the narative of the book and I cannot wait to dig in farther and keep you updated as I progress through the book, Test Driven Development: By Example.

A Haiku by Amanda Shankle-Knowlton I thought was pretty good that to me makes sense.

I will work through lunch

Stay late, tracking down a bug

Just to hear “good catch”

The last testing strategy I would like to learn more about is Oblique Testing. Apparently the concept was used by a music producer to make artists try something new. The testing method provides a set of cards that are based on fictional reviews for the application. The method is mainly using mobile apps, but can be used in other applications as well. The full software dev team is also involved and not just the testers. This seems like an interesting take on testing that I will definitely be gaining more insight on in the future.

The following are links to the blogs or titles of books.

Pair Testing:

http://lisacrispin.com/2016/09/22/pair-testing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

Javascript Unit Testing:

http://blog.testproject.io/2016/09/21/javascript-unit-test-automation-react-components/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

Test Driven Development:

Test Driven Development: by example, by Kent Beck.

ISBN: 0-321-14653-30

Haiku:

http://amandashankleknowlton.blogspot.com/2016/09/testing-haiku.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mottestingfeeds+%28Testing+Feeds+-+Bloggers%29

Oblique Testing:

http://www.softwaretestingmagazine.com/knowledge/oblique-testing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SoftwareTestingMagazine+%28Software+Testing+Magazine%29

My First Blog Woohoo

Well as the title says this is my first attempt at blogging and I hope that I can share some great stuff that is of use to you. For now I will stick to a weekly blog on anything and everything Software Testing for class and see how that goes. I may venture into the unknown and blog on my other classes as there may be some nuggets of wisdom on Data Mining, Software Development, and anything CS related.