Saturday, November 28, 2009

Automated testing and sins

It's not often you see an article on software testing where the format makes it stand out, but that is the case on this article on automated software testing. An example of how it treats the sin of Pride is below.

Picture the scene: The wool has been pulled over the eyes of Brimstone Business Application Co’s CIO. He did a deal with a big IT supplier to have their quality-centred products added to his order. At the time it seemed like a good idea – he saved the company money and had a nice round of golf rolled-in to boot. He’d fallen into the superiority trap of believing that the most expensive or most prevalent solution would always be the best, but now was beginning to realise that this particular technology was not actually compatible with his company’s needs. He’d brought this solution in, so his pride was unable to take failure. Instead he persevered until it was too late and placed unrealistic goals on his QA team, who were then forced to revert back to manual testing. As a result the project time-lines slipped, applications went out the door late and bug-ridden, which proved expensive in re-work costs and built up a huge stack of technical debt. His department was now damned to an eternity of fire-fighting the latest problems.

The punishment in Hell will be: to be broken on the wheel.

Avoidance strategy: bigger isn’t always better. Look around when evaluating new solutions.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

VSTS testing - Visual Studio Team System Test Edition

If you are using Visual Studio Team System Test Edition for testing there is plenty of advice on the Microsoft site to help new testers and advanced practioners. For a start point try out Getting Started with Team System Testing Tools

This section takes you on a tour through the tools and windows of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers. You will see basic aspects of the Team System testing tools, such as how to create and work with tests, the types of tests that are available, and how to configure the testing tools.

For a range of different testing information on VSTS try the testing type information:
Working with Unit Tests Provides links to topics that describe unit tests and how to create them. Working with Web Tests Describes how to create, edit, run, and view Web tests. Working with Load Tests Describes the uses of load tests, how to edit and run them, how to collect and store load test performance data, and how to analyze load test runs. Working with Manual Tests Describes how to create and run manual tests, the only non-automated test type. Working with Generic Tests Describes how to create and run generic tests. Generic tests wrap external programs and tests that were not originally developed for use in the Team System testing tools. Working with Ordered Tests Describes how to create ordered tests, which contain other tests that are meant to be run in a specified order
Microsoft Visual Studio VSTS testing