Test.bash(); 2022 - Ask Me Anything: All Things Testing Tools with Sonali Das

[dianadromey]

In this session, we will be looking to know of to find and use the best tools, how to practice with these tools and how we can stay tool aware.

Our famous and experienced host @gwendiagram will invite @sonali_das on stage to help us dig into all things testing tools.

Sonali is a seasoned Test Automation professional, with 15+ years of experience in Test Automation and has developed codeless/low code automation tools using open source jars. Sonali believes programming knowledge is important, but it’s also important to develop the test faster.

Through CI we can reduce the Test Execution efforts, but Test Design efforts cant be forgotten. The faster the test design, the less the cost of the test design.

Sonali will also share her experience on how to develop Codeless/low code automation tools through open source tools so that Test Design can be faster with less resource cost and zero tool cost.

We’ll use this Club thread to share resources mentioned during the session and answer any questions we don’t get to during the live session.

[dianadromey]

Questions Asked

Richard Forjoe - What are some pain points / Limitations with using codeless automation tools?

Anonymous - If you could build the ultimate testing tool, what would that tool do?

Richard Forjoe - What kind of apps/systems do codeless tools support? Mainly websites or others?

Simon Rigler - Do you ever find that manual / exploratory testing is more practical in certain moments? e.g. features being new / unstable, complexity, important edge cases ?

@gerardmccann - What kind of automated testing do you find most satisfying please? API or UI. Thanks

@jenbauer - Do you find that codeless automation tools can be a way to open up QA outside of the QA team, or can otherwise be used to improve cross-team relationships?

@gerardmccann - Do you have written set of coding standards for your automation team? Do you do code reviews? Thanks

Anonymous - What advice would you give to someone looking to introduce automated testing to their app who is starting from scratch?

@darkartswizard - How do you work with table validations in a codeless approach?

Anonymous - What techniques do you recommend for managing and creating test data?

Anonymous - What kind of open source tools did you use to create low code / codeless tools?

@gerardmccann - Do you like using Cucumber BDD and stuff like that or see it as more of overhead? Thanks

Anonymous - Why did you build your own tool instead of using something of the shelve?

Anonymous - How do you train your team members on the tools you build?

Anonymous - When you mix and match these tools in your recipes, how do you keep all those libraries up to date and working?

@utchbe - What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your tools journey?

@jenbauer - I am also curious about training - what makes training on a new tool easy for everyone involved?

Anonymous - What tools do you use regularly outside of automated tests. Tools that support your exploratory testing?

@yelbmik1 - What technical book(s) are you currently reading, if any?

Questions Not Answered Live

@gerardmccann - Where do you see your career progressing to in the future? Just thinking when we are really great and experienced in automation, where next? Maybe architecture?

@daveharlowe - what is basic tech skills needed to eval tools? is programming language always a 1st step?