All Questions
7
votes
6answers
1k views
Going from Development into QA?
I'm an intermediate-senior developer who got burned out severely with programming last year and I've been exploring possibilities of a career change into Testing/QA (among others such as Technical ...
7
votes
5answers
211 views
Workflow shortcut to meet the release deadline
When you design a test scenario or even when you run your tests and you stumble to lack of specifications from your marketing Dept. should you bypass them and take the initiative of making your own ...
7
votes
4answers
857 views
Testing cloud based applications
Is there any fundmental difference in the way applications/servies hosted on a cloud are to be tested vis-a-vis a traditional web based application ? It looks essentially the same to me except the way ...
7
votes
4answers
253 views
Should unit tests be executed as part of a build?
I worked at a company where unit tests ran as part of the build. The build failed if the unit tests failed. What are the benefits and disadvantages of that practice?
7
votes
5answers
744 views
Test Strategy Documentation
What are the main points that should be included in a test strategy document for a particular project? I'm not looking at details but more from a high level overview.
I would like to make it a brief ...
7
votes
4answers
176 views
Where does Automation creation happen w/in the Development Cycle?
I’m a Software QA Engineer at a small web development company and I need help wrapping my brain around implementing a new process.
As of recently, my shop only handled ‘one-offs’. We would work on ...
7
votes
4answers
549 views
How to organize test documentation?
Testing process involves plenty of documentation. How to organize it, so that it is easy to get an information that is needed?
7
votes
3answers
251 views
Mutation testing: is it useful for assessing test quality?
This is part of my quest how to test my tests and test data. I looked at the techniques that would help improve my test cases. While code/branch coverage can tell me whether my test suites cover my ...
7
votes
4answers
381 views
What's the difference between code coverage and test coverage?
At first I though it was the same but with eclemma it seems different. But I can't find anything about it.
7
votes
4answers
68 views
How can a conference attendee get the most out of a testing conference?
I get that arriving to the session early (at least on time) and paying full attention is a given. I sit on the front row when I can to lessen distractions & help me focus. Also I get to go to bed ...
7
votes
3answers
2k views
Good Watir or Watir-Webdriver tutorials/resources for new-to-automation testers?
There are at least two really good books for Selenium beginners, and quite a few courses/tutorials out there, as well as a lot of blogs.
However, I haven't seen quite as much out there for Watir - ...
7
votes
4answers
241 views
How to eliminate \ reduce invalid failures in automation due to GUI changes?
I am into the automation of a web application using Selenium. I write test cases without hard-coding anything in the test cases. There were many invalid failures in the run due to GUI changes such as ...
7
votes
2answers
413 views
How to define test strategy of a company (how testing is done at a specific company) ?
We have to deal at times with requests where a prospective customer is approaching us for some work and is interested to know how we do testing. Generally what we hear is a high level statement (or ...
7
votes
5answers
380 views
Testing email generation
Some applications generate emails. There may be multiple email formats based on the purpose of the message. The email may be destined for a single individual or a group. It may also be ...
7
votes
5answers
584 views
Why (& how) do Static and Dynamic testing complement each other.
Why (& how) do Static and Dynamic testing complement each other.
Not much more, simple question.
7
votes
4answers
393 views
Keeping automation code away from application source code
Disclaimer: this question is not related to - "Test cases in source code"
I am working on a super fast development environment where manual test cases were given no importance (thankfully things are ...
7
votes
4answers
663 views
Load testing tools vs. making your own
I've never needed to work with commercial load running tools before, as our test infrastructure is pretty immature here and I've used internal tools in the past. We're working on a .NET technology ...
7
votes
4answers
1k views
Need to make WatiN work for us, or need to find a different tool
tl;dr version: WatiN Test Recorder looks dead, and I am unsure of the status of WatiN itself. I need to make them work or find alternatives that meet our requirements. Suggestions?
Longer version:
...
7
votes
2answers
373 views
Testing NOSQL DB's like distributed Cassandra
Has anybody worked on testing Cassandra DB which is a NOSQL distributed DB?
What are the important things to be taken into account while doing this?
7
votes
4answers
286 views
What learning resources are there for testers who want to study Systems Thinking?
Systems thinking is tremendously relevant to any professional tester, but few testers study it, despite the obvious benefits of learning techniques/approaches that allow you to study systems in terms ...
7
votes
7answers
264 views
Looking for a faulty application for training
As part of training for new QA resources, I would like to have them practice testing against an application with known issues. I know there are security examples of this type of application (i.e. ...
7
votes
4answers
179 views
Should coverage analysis be performed on test code?
I'm of the opinion that it should. Test code is meant to be deterministic. This means that 100% of it should be executed. If it's not 100% (and assuming the analysis tool isn't under-reporting), ...
7
votes
2answers
7k views
Techniques to write good acceptance criteria for user stories
I am a developer in the scrum master role and need to get the whole team (specially our product owner) more involved with clearly defining the boundaries of stories. I suspect acceptance criteria is ...
7
votes
2answers
289 views
Suggestions for “Selling” TDD, and FDD to sceptical non engineering managers
Let's say you are a developer (specifically, the team lead) and you want to improve the quality of your company's products. Since you cannot change the whole company, you focus on what you and your ...
7
votes
4answers
1k views
Headless Functional Testing For Your JavaScript Web App?
JavaScript is everywhere right now. With the advent of jQuery and other associated JavaScript frameworks it's amazingly simple to add very powerful user interactions to web sites and web applications. ...
7
votes
1answer
1k views
Extracting hidden text with Selenium
I'm trying to extract a certain message from my app.
The text starts up as visible and then changes to style= "visibility: hidden"
the visibility period is rather short, and I was wondering how can I ...
7
votes
3answers
175 views
USB storage emulator
I need to emulate insertion and removal of SD cards to write tests. What is the best way/tool to implement it in .NET?
7
votes
3answers
370 views
What are guidelines to use for exit criteria when releasing?
When I am in ship mode I normally apply a set of criteria before I will "Ship". They do vary, however they are typically along the lines of the following:
Zarro Boogs (Zero active issues). This ...
7
votes
2answers
183 views
What factors do you consider when putting together a dept training plan?
I'm currently putting together a more formal training syllabus/plan for the testers on our team. Whilst on-the-job coaching has served us pretty well so far (helped by the fact that everyone on the ...
7
votes
1answer
214 views
How can I teach QTP to treat a control as another similar control?
I have a third party check box control in my AUT that QTP does not recognize. Is there a way to have QTP treat it as a regular .NET check box?
7
votes
3answers
236 views
Any good references on Privacy Testing?
I heard a reference to Privacy testing recently (James Whittaker mentioned it here.) and it seems like a valuable area to know something about. It's extremely important these days as companies balance ...
7
votes
1answer
525 views
Continuous Integration and testing environment and configuration for Android
I am an Android developer but I am not satisfied with my testing and Continuous Integration environment and configuration.
Someone could recommend me how to configure the best setup and workflow for ...
7
votes
1answer
337 views
Test Automation for SAP
I'm evaluating a number of test automation framworks to implement on a SAP project.
Right now I'm looking at
Fitnesse, which we believe we can write some fixtures for, to call SAP
Green Hat, which ...
6
votes
10answers
314 views
Should a test method test only one condition?
While writing automated test I come across situations when I include multiple verification points in one method but then I have also read/heard that one tests should make just one verification. Which ...
6
votes
8answers
249 views
My team codes in one language, I want to test using another. What can go wrong?
The people I work with are .NET programmers that aren't exactly on the BDD/TDD bandwagon yet. I'm the main web designer, but for the past few months I've also been assigned the tester role as well ...
6
votes
5answers
1k views
Are state transition diagrams a good software testing technique
I have been looking at different testing techniques and wondered if anyone had some "real world" examples of using state transition diagrams rather than the bog standard clock and light switch ones ...
6
votes
8answers
286 views
Bugs keep reappearing in our GUI software during development. How should this be addressed?
We have a software product has a lot of usability features, and we're constantly changing it. We have issues with things like persisting scroll position which seem to get fixed, but then are broken ...
6
votes
4answers
187 views
How can my team move away from record-and-playback when not everyone has scripting experience?
(Inspired by this question)
My team is currently doing automated testing via our tool's record-and-playback function. I've read about the benefits of developing a more robust test solution via ...
6
votes
3answers
199 views
What would be the best roles and assignments for a developer in a QA team?
How can a developer that joins a QA team give the help that has the biggest impact and which are the best assignments for him that would most benefit the team?
6
votes
4answers
154 views
What do you do when you encounter overloaded terminology in your workspace?
I've been in many difference sized companies and in many different environments where we've used terms interchangably, Testing Terms, Development Terms and Process types have been overloaded in one ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
What proficiency should a software tester have in SQL?
Both in my current job and in my previous job, there are a number of areas of the application to test that require mining data from a relational database, specifically Microsoft SQL Server of various ...
6
votes
6answers
266 views
What are some small, standalone or web applications for test new QA staff on?
I'm permanently stuck with the following trouble: being Senior QA I need to quickly check and hire people for short-time testing projects. I specialize mostly in manual testing, while the range of ...
6
votes
4answers
11k views
What is the correct way to select an <option> using Selenium's Python WebDriver
I would like to select an <option> child of a <select> using the Python WebDriver.
I have a reference to the option WebElement I wish to select and have tried select() and click() methods ...
6
votes
4answers
540 views
What is an injected defect in Software Engineering?
In software engineering, what is meant by injected defects? And if such type of defect arises during software testing, then how are injected defects handled? Also how can the rate of occurrence of ...
6
votes
9answers
352 views
How do I satisfy external auditors that automated tests are at least as effective as manual tests?
My company is not an anti-automation place. In fact, one of the reasons they hired me was to bring in some expertise in test automation. The problem is that the current processes and procedures in ...
6
votes
7answers
248 views
Should tool generated test data be deleted during tear down in test automation?
I have seen this recommendation many times that tear down is supposed to clear test data which is created during tests. This is supposed to avoid interference with any future tests. For example ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
Recommendations for functional testing a WCF service
I need to do some functional testing on a component that exposes a small set of WCF endpoints. I'm still ramping up on WCF, so I'm hitting a bit of analysis paralysis trying to figure out the best way ...
6
votes
3answers
175 views
How do you determine critical areas to test when verifying multiple browser support?
With Microsoft putting out a new version of IE every year or so, competitors like Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari also doing the same, there are questions, frequently, as to whether a web ...
6
votes
2answers
89 views
Is there a way to identify that a Disk is removable ?
On windows XP/7, is there a way to identify from a script (never mind the script language being used) that a disk is not a network or fixed drive?
6
votes
4answers
227 views
How do you design your test method/function
This question has been revolving on my mind from quite some time.
Do you develop one method for one test scenario or club similar scenarios in one method and develop automated tests for it. Both ...
