Issue 22: Thoughts on ditching Test Cases
🕒 5 MIN READ | Published on: August 25, 2021This is the Software Testing Notes, a newsletter that goes out every Wednesday. I republish it here for sharing and referencing, but if you'd like to sign up you can do so right here:
Hello everyone! 👋
I’m Pritesh and this is the 22nd edition of Software Testing Notes, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content on Software Testing. I hope this week has been good for you so far.
Testing Community has been speaking about usefulness or rather burden of having test cases recently. Brijesh has already made some really good points on why we really don’t need test cases that really makes you wonder on how we have came to depend on the test cases too much.
But, if not test cases then what ? how would you facilitate the testing ? This week Johanna South wrote about using Feature Map as a alternative in a article called An End to End Guide About Feature Mapping .
Johanna uses the Trello board as a example as a one of the possible approach. But you can also utilize other tools too. I did shared something similar in #Issue 19 , where James Thomas shared his learning on “Open Testing with Confluence" where he explains how he utilizes confluence pages to note down testing process. I would highly recommend checking out all of above articles.
With that being said, It’s time for our weekly round up of curated links. I have lots of nice reads for you this week, let me know what your favorite is!
Happy Testing and have a great rest of the week! 🙏
📚 On Testing
Who the heck is an SDET? 😕 by Gaurav Singh
What does it mean to be an SDET (Software development engineer in Test)? Gaurav Singh clarifies some common misconceptions and sheds light on some of the activities that an SDET is expected to do in this blog post.
Future of Testing and Last Five Years? by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Maaret looks back to last 5 years in the Software Development and Testing on what has changed over the years and possible future for the same in coming next few years.
Skin Rashes and Software Testing by Andrew Knight
Sharing your personal experience is hard and it takes a lots of gut. I’m very impressed with this post shared by Andrew Knight as he opens up about his experience with skin rashes and how it parallels to the Software Testing.
Andrew, Sending you my best wishes and I hope you feel better soon.
How To Describe a Defect So Everyone Could Understand (+ Bonus Tips) by Yuliia Kuprii
Yuliia Kuprii shares few useful tips on how we can improve the bug reports.
Stop trying to measure test coverage! by Marcelo Soares
Does it make sense to have 100% test coverage in a front-end project?
Marcelo Soares shares his idea on how it’s a bad idea to put too much emphasis on % of test coverages and why should we stop trying to find mystical numbers to measure the quality.
Developing a solid yet simple test plan via TEST Magazine
Wondering how to get started on building a Test Plan ? what to include and what questions to ask ? Read this article shared in TEST Magazine to find out.
In previous issue #20, James Thomas shared an article on what construct as a ideal test plan ? which is worthy of a read.
Why Good Error Messages Can Save Time and Effort by Stephan Kämper
Stephan Kämper explains need of having a meaningful error messages and how it improves overall product experience, helps your end users and entire team including developers and testers.
Alternatives to “Manual Testing”: Experiential, Attended, Exploratory by Michael Bolton
Few month ago, Brijesh wrote a post about #nothingcalledmanualtesting which resonated with many testers across industry. This week, Michael Bolton has written a very thought provoking article on the subject. If you are wondering why many testers don’t like the term “Manual Testing /’ers very much, I higly recommend reading this.
Read all curated stuff on Software Testing here.
⚙️ Automation
Testing AWS Lambda function locally by Yvo van Zee
Get started on how python-lambda-local package can help to test your lambda python function locally as it would be running inside AWS in this post by Yvo van Zee.
On codeless automation (or rather on abstraction layers) by Bas Dijkstra
Do you think codeless is a good thing or no? Bas shares his views one the same and goes into the details of the some drawbacks of the abstraction layers.
What should the ratio of automated to exploratory testing be? by Gregory Paciga
you might have heard people saying “you shouldn’t automate everything.” or “Just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.” But then you might be wondering if not all then what % of the tests we can automate ? what should be the ratio ? Gregory Paciga reflects and shares his view on the same in this article.
Read all curated articles, news on Automation here.
💨 Performance
Benchmarking Redis with k6 by Ng Wai Foong
This tutorial by Ng Wai Foong covers Redis performance testing via two different approaches on a Linux machine:
- redis-benchmark : tool that provides you with a quick glimpse of the performance of your Redis server.
- xk6-redis : scriptable in JavaScript and can provide you with better control over the execution and workflow of your test
cURL Tips for Performance Engineers by NaveenKumar Namachivayam
cURL is a great utility for a quick smoke test and for automating stuffs.
In this article, Naveen provides useful tips to convert the headers to cURL command and how to create a JMeter test plan from cURL command. He also has published a YouTube video on the same called cURL for Performance Engineers.
Load testing for gRPC services with Gatling by Oleksandr Romanov
Oleksandr shows a few basic examples load tests for gRPC service using Gatling with gRPC plugin.
How to Speed Test a CDN: An Introduction by SpeedTestDemon
This is first in a series of articles about CDN by SpeedTestDemon. you will get answers to couple of questions such as,
- What numbers are measured for CDN download speed?
- Why were those numbers selected?
- How are the numbers measured?
- Where is the measurement done? Cloud server or home computer?
Read all curated articles, news on Performance here.
🛡️ Security
Top 10 Kubernetes Container Scanner to Detect Security Vulnerability and Misconfiguration by Gurubaran
This article details a few Kubernetes Container Scanner tools that can help to find the security vulnerability and misconfiguration and provide the best security.
How to stay secure for longer? Software development case. by Mateusz Olejarka
Wondering about starting an internal Bug bounty and Security training in your organization? Mateusz Olejarka has wrote an great article about it.
Read all curated articles, news on Security here.
🌞 Accessibility
Accessibility Testing Using Playwright by Praveen Anushka
Learn how to automate accessibility testing using Playwright and Axe (An accessibility test engine)
Read all curated articles, news on Accessibility here.
🛠️ Resources & Tools
vConsole
Another mobile debugging tool that lets you view console logs, network requests, cookies, LocalStorage, SessionStorage, and more.
Cypress Example Recipes
A GitHub repo containing various recipes for testing common scenarios using Cypress, the popular front-end testing library.
ARIA DevTools
chrome extension, which can help you to see the website the way screen readers present it to the blind users. All page elements are presented according to their explicit or implied ARIA roles. This includes headings, images, tables and form items beyond others.
headers 2 curl
Provided a set of HTTP request headers, output the curl command line for generating that set. Try the converter online at
📝 List of Software Testers
It's hard to find good articles, podcasts on Software Testing. Even hard to find people who create them. Are you also looking for amazing software testers to follow or read their content ? check out this page dedicated to software testers.
Do you also create content around Software Testing ? Submit yours here and I will add it to the list.
😂 And Finally,
Keep Smiling and have a fun week.
👋 Reach Out
Let me know what you thought about this newsletter, maybe you have some ideas you'd like to share.
You can follow me personally @priteshusdadiya. I give insights into Testing, development & how I'm growing Software Testing Notes.
You can follow @thetestingkit to keep up-to-date on the community & fresh links to read.
Happy Reading. 🔥
Pritesh
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