Writing time: 2.5 hours
TL;DR
On Monday I was at first day of European Testing Conference 2018. Location is Amsterdam Arena. Here is what I learned.
At welcome session, we got essential service information that are important for every conference. Code of Conduct was amplified again, and I must say that this is very important issue, especially for Software Testers that usually bring “bad news” at their work. To amplify that they are in safe environment is important in order to help them to “open up” during discussions.
We got our first task in order to be prepared for Speed Meets. Creat mind map about your information in following categories:
- personal
- work
- in the last year
More about speed meet later in this blog post.
# Opening keynote: Gojko Adzic :: Painless Visual Testing
Visual testing is hot topic. Problem that tries to resolve is are there any visual issue triggered by change in web application layout (css and image changes). Gojko develops Mindmup, tool that runs in browser and creates mind maps. As feature list and code base is growing, Gojko hit the problem of visual regression issues. So he open sourced apprise.qa. It is javascript framework where you can describe what you expect of your page layout in yml file.
Important feature is that you can easily take a snapshot of your page, that will serve you as a base for future regressions. I will definitely give it it a try, because it combines Selenium and sikuli features that enables you to do visual regression testing.
Takeaways
Interesting projects make you to come up with interesting solutions 🙂
With visual examples of your pages (in text format), you can start discussions about them and apply various heuristics.
Test automation should assists humans, not replaced them.
No man’s sky game uses notation to describe the world objects and its inhabitants.
AWS lambda supports headless chrome and pay as you run option.
# Talk Desmond Delissen :: Why we thought our testers to code
This was real case example how digital agency thought their qa team to code in order to produce effective and reusable BDD examples that represented their executable documentation. They created frameworks for api and UI testing, Beatrice and Minose.
Talked contained famous Testing pyramid with manual testing at he the top of it. As first item below was integration testing, it seems that author supports that manual testing is just on integration level. But manual testing can be on all levels. And it is testing, and every testing is exploratory testing, but I will leave it this for other blog.
And pyramid is three dimensional object, not two. So this was testing triangle. With pyramid, you need to fill in two more dimensions (brain is one of them).
# Writing better BDD scenarios
This was workshop, held by Seb Rose and Gaspar Nagy.
As I have produced very ugly and awful bdd scenarios files, this excellent workshop helped me to put me back on line 🙂
I made a mistake and used scenario files as test examples (you know that, when I fill, when I click) with a lot of page implementation details. But BDD scenario files are communication tool, they only should contain application behaviour, not application details. Details should go to steps and page files. Very simple.
But one important note, tester should create scenario files based on features agreed with all stakeholders, this is important input in order to write proper scenarios. We also got as material checklists for writing effective scenario, but understanding what scenario files is, you are good to go.
# Speed meet
This was something new for me. Excellent experience. There were 200 chairs, arranged in two rows spanning as a snake through one big room. We sat on chairs, and after initial move to the right for three times, we started 5 minute slot conversations based on our mind maps.
I talked for 40 minutes without a break and meet 8 testers with 8 different testing contexts! Excellent experience.
Here is video to get the impression.
# Talk, Anssi Lehtela:: 10 tools for 10x testers
Anssi presented in liveo demo 10 tools that help him in his testing activities
# Mindmup and Kipling method. Kipling method helps you to do the planning, and results are best noted in form of mindmap.
# Xmind + planing. Why another mindmap tool, well Xmind have tab feature where you can organize your mindmups.
# Clipboard history. Never overwrite you clipboard content! On Mac Flycat and Alfred, on PC Ditto.
# Postman api testing using practical GUI. Newman helps you to create scripts from postman that can be run in CI.
# Ruby + shell. And I would like to add excellent book: Everyday Scripting with Ruby: For Teams, Testers, and You
# Mob programming as a way of working. During the break and dinner conversations I found out that majority of testers now pair with developers. Thumb up!
# Cucumber gem for running BDD scenarios.
# Graylog for making sense from server logs
# Kanbanflow for self organization
# Karnival Slides for creating effective presentations for testers who can not draw.
# Lean Coffee
Lean coffee is very simple and effective way to facilitate discussions. My group facilitator was Lanette Creamer. In five minutes you put your discussion topic on postits and after that you put three votes on you favourite topic. Then timed discussion slots are started beginning with topic that got most votes. And the end, you vote for extending the discussion, or moving on next one.
We discussed about mind maps, exploratory session notes and how to expose your testing to other testers. Lanette shared his horrified experience with installing git in order to be able to push her hard work on javascript lessons.
Well, todays programming can not be done without git and we testers must appreciate that developer extra skill.
# Key Lanette Creamer – Test like a cat.
Lanette connected her cat knowledge with software tester position in the team. The whole motive, based on her working experience is that testers are separated from developers. I understand her statements,but I do not agree with all her statements. I already stated, I heard positive experience stories how developers and testers mob together in order to make product better. I think that this is the future of software testing. I am also pro side that testers should be always calm part in the developers/tester relationship. I also have had bad experiences with SOME developers, but being the voice of reason and putting my emotions on side, I always resolved conflicts and made my testing to better serve product delivery. Being self employed and reading book How to negotiate anything by Kristine Kathryn Rusch helped me to steer my testing into that direction.
That was it for the first day.
Customer satisfaction: 4.2/5
