In preparation for my Talk at test.Bash() I watched a video of Paul Grizzaffi, in where he explains the importance of adding layers to your automation.
I do not watch videos to learn things, so I won’t say what I’ve watched. As I said in keeping current, I also don’t really try to keep up with current testing tools.
I will say that if you’re on a posixy CLI, (bash, dash, zsh, basically the terminal on Linux, MacOS or WSL2), then you can learn a lot by typing "man . All the common CLI tools have excellent man(ual) pages, which contain absolute goldmines of information, far beyond adding a -h flag.
How did it help you and how could it help others?
All the videos are really helpful in getting to know and use the tool.
Who was featured in the video and how might you thank them for sharing?
Created by someone in the team i would guess… no credits that i could see, i tend to thank people/teams by telling then how the video helped me and what i did when i went away with my new found knowledge!
What testing tools video would you like to see and/or record yourself?
Not 100% sure as most of the ones i’ve ever needed are out there, i prefer the ones that assume no prior knowledge!!
It’s a short tutorial on how to test GraphQL APIs with Postman:
Who was featured in the video and how might you thank them for sharing?
It’s made by a fellow called Valentin Despa, he’s got a YouTube channel about API related topics.
What testing tools video would you like to see and/or record yourself?
I’m not really, sure yet. There seems to be more than enough of Postman tutorials out there already.
It was quite useful for shifting my thinking around testing. Coming from an automation heavy world in very risk-averse domains, this video goes against everything I was taught, how I thought and operated on a daily basis. Initially it was quite tricky to make the philosophical shift and even trickier to make the process shift, but I’m happy I was challenged like that. I learned tons of new tools I can now comfortably wield to achieve the team’s quality goals.
Who was featured in the video and how might you thank them for sharing?
Sally Goble, I kind of did since we worked together for ~1 year, not long after the video was recorded.
What testing tools video would you like to see and/or record yourself?
Basically the video I’ve shared, but going into more technical detail how certain visions have been implemented, specifically what tools were used and what lessons were learned.
After watching Mark & Richard’s AiT workshop on Testability, I went on a hunt for more resources to share with my team.
While it’s not directly about specific tools as such, the topic does a great job of covering the thinking behind and value derived from using tools in our work.
Here is what I’ve come up with (so far!):
Learning to ask for Testability by Nicola Owen. This is a really short sharp experience report of what Testability is and what it’s like trying to make progress on it within a team (and some of the challenges sounded familiar ).
A Tale of Testability by Rob Meaney. Rob literally wrote the book on Testability! This is another wonderful report on how to get this implemented on your team but more importantly on how improving testability makes everyone’s lives better!
Testability AMA with Ash Winter. Ash also literally wrote the book on Testability! There are some absolutely incredible nuggets of information in here about what Testability is, how it helps, where you can start and a lot more.
Taking Control of Your Test Environment by Ioana Serban. Ioana tells a wonderful story on her (and our!) adventures improving Testability in her project by taming her unpredictable test environment. It. Is. AWESOME!
One video I’d like to see is something on Watir. I’m no coder (yet!) but I’m really drawn to Ruby for some reason. I have no idea why to be honest!
I made some abortive attempts at learning it in the past - maybe I just need to create some material on it. They say the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else so…
The Video: Postman Beginner’s Course - API Testing
How did it help you and how could it help others?
This video is excellent for complete Postman noobs. Many tutorials assume the viewer already has a certain level of knowledge with the subject (a level I frequently find I am beneath, so I start off lost and never quite catch up). This video does not. It takes someone from absolute 0 to being able to create and run automated API tests via Postman.
Who was featured in the video and how might you thank them for sharing?
The video features Valentin Despa providing the instruction on behalf of freeCodeCamp.org.
Going to share not a single video but a couple of video series. I recently have been using ZAP to do some security testing. I had only a brief intro at a conference workshop, so I really was starting from the beginning. Starting with this series really helped me understand the tool and what I needed to do to get it to work for me (and I went back and referenced it when I ran into questions/issues as I used ZAP): ZAP in Ten
Then, when I started using the tool, I found myself wanting to learn more so I turned to the deep dive series: ZAP Deep Dive
I really should reach out to Simon to thank him for them - they have been really helpful. I have definitely thanked him for his help on the Google user group!
Share a video about testing tools you’ve recently watched
I found it hard to come up with something, but I am often pointing people to Amber Race’s TAU course on API testing with Postman:
How did it help you and how could it help others?
It was helpful to me for rounding out what my API tests should (and shouldn’t) do, and how to structure them.
I think it will do the same for others! Strongly recommend it, especially for anyone starting out with API testing.
Who was featured in the video and how might you thank them for sharing?
What testing tools video would you like to see and/or record yourself?
Heh, I’d love to record some if I could find the time.
I’d like to see some videos on monitoring / observability tools like Datadog, Grafana, Honeycomb - I find them difficult to understand without someone holding my hand.
(to be fair, those videos may exist, I haven’t looked yet!)
Playwright is an awesome new UI testing tool not based on selenium. I always enjoy hearing about new features from them as it seems like the tool adds features quickly. Folks could learn why they should keep their current tool or switch to a new tool by exploring POC’s. Also with Selenium 4 recently adding hooks into CDP, it is great to see this team also looking to add similar features.
Andrey is the lead dev on the project and does many videos about it for Applitools.
I honestly would prefer to stream setting up a new tool and using it, and then posting it on Youtube. I would probably talk about things like Playwright, component object model, and mocking. Streaming allows for better interaction with folks vs just comments on a recorded video.
The last tool I got a video of is a Loom by @berenvd which i’m not allowed to share sadly.
But it was a good way to share information. He had time to explain options, show screens and managed to keep it to exactly 5 minutes!