Welcome to the 154th issue!

Is Selenium still worth it?

In the age of Cypress, Playwright, Webdriver.io, and many other tools improving the experience of testing web apps, this question is more relevant than ever.

For example, I found this Reddit thread:

Selenium: What am I missing about this tool?

It sparked a big discussion with some interesting points. Have a look.

Happy testing!

Dawid Dylowicz  

TimeShiftX — Travel in Time, Test with Ease

TimeShiftX lets you time travel your software apps and databases, using virtual clocks, to test date and time-sensitive functionality and code such as year-end, daylight savings, and billing. Employ instant time travel inside Active Directory & Kerberos without editing code or changing system clocks and thus removing all pain points. Check it out.

vornexinc.com  

Action or reaction: What is the best time to hire your first QA?

That's a good question, not only from the perspective of the manager but also someone thinking of joining a company as the first tester. Vincent Ferreira shares his opinion.

And if you're looking for a new opportunity, Sławomir Radzymiński advises on Maximizing Your Employability as a Software Engineer in Test.

medium.com  

Devs ignore bugs until a customer reports it

Have you faced a similar problem too? There are some good pieces of advice from the community.

You may also want to check out this thread: As a QA, how do you deal with escaped defects?

reddit.com  

How to Create a Quality Strategy and Testing Model

This is a wonderful overview by Stuart Thomas of how they approached creating a company-wide quality strategy.

thequalityduck.co.uk  

You've "Built Quality In". Are You Sure About That?

Michael Bolton explains why the noble focus on preventing issues is just part of the success story and why we shouldn't aim to eliminate the testing role from development teams entirely.

developsense.com  

Testing for compliance — or quality?

The world is full of software that perfectly meets all documented requirements but offers no added value to its users.

Rodrigo Costa explains why it's essential to think from the user perspective while developing and testing a product rather than only relying on predefined requirements.

medium.com  

An Expert's Guide To Understanding The Testing Pyramid

Andreea Draniceanu simply explains the test pyramid, including the pros, cons and best practices.

theqalead.com  

Exploratory Testing + Automation

Wondering how combining test automation with exploratory testing can improve your testing process? Millan Kaul provides some examples.

github.io  

OOP concepts in Selenium Java Automation Framework

If you're using one of the object-oriented programming languages to write your tests, you might be interested in this nice overview of good practices by Sandeep. And to see how to apply it in Java Selenium tests, check out the second part.

medium.com  

Sandwich testing — a way to overcome testing fatigue?

Rasmus Ursem suggests an interesting way to make TDD more efficient by using both top-bottom and bottom-up approaches.

medium.com  

Should Test Automation "Just Handle It"?

Automators sometimes feel compelled to "make the script pass" which leads to creating automation that handles differences in the workflow of the feature we are testing.

Paul Grizzaffi highlights the common problem with test automation and reminds us of the actual goal.

wordpress.com  

Asynchronous Testing in Kubernetes using Testkube

Using Kubernetes? Dejan Pejčev explains how to test it using a helpful open-source tool specifically created for that purpose — Testkube.

testkube.io  

Automation with Playwright in 2023. Typescript, Page Object, and Fixtures

Eugene Gronski wrote a great overview of Playwright, showing examples of implementing a test using the Page Object Model.

Furthermore, Nikolay Advolodkin shares some good advice on Mastering Playwright: How to Create Effective Page Objects.

medium.com  

Basics of Testing in Xcode

Testing iOS mobile apps? Dan Smith put together a detailed getting-started guide to iOS test automation in XCode.

medium.com  

Cypress: challenge your fast feedback loop

Feeling like your Cypress tests are running slow? Jöel Grimberg shares a few pieces of advice that may be causing that and shows examples of solving these problems.

Also, Kailash Pathak wrote a helpful guide instructing How to Perform React Component Testing using Cypress.

qxperts.io  

Hydra Lab: the next generation cross-platform software testing infrastructure open-sourced by Microsoft

Exciting news from Microsoft! They've just open-sourced HydraLab — a framework that allows you to build your own test device platform in the cloud.

medium.com  

Unlock the full potential of Postman for efficient API testing

Kelvin Muliamin wrote a detailed guide to Postman, including a lot of practical examples of using its vast range of features.

medium.com  

"An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg

The book An Introduction to General Systems Thinking is considered one of the must-reads for testers. Željko Filipin shares his opinion about it.

filipin.eu  

Another book review! "Grokking Continuous Delivery" by Christie Wilson

Lisa Crispin wrote a short review of the Grokking Continuous Delivery book that helps you understand the key concepts of continuous delivery.

lisacrispin.com  

Heuristics in Software Testing

If you're looking for a simple explanation of heuristics in testing, take a look at this full-of-examples 13-min video by Daniel Knott.

youtube.com  

The 2022 State of Testing in DevOps Report

The 2022 Testing in DevOps Report is a pulse check on how software development organizations are adopting DevOps and quality engineering on the path to digital transformation. Explore the full findings of the report, and see how testing leaders are planning to optimize their quality practices in the coming year. Read it here.

mabl.com  

Surely no bugs in this pull request... 😂

Thanks for reading!

If you like this newsletter and it helps you become a better tester, you can say thanks and buy me a coffee.

Dawid Dylowicz