The Software Tester in a Scrum Team

The integration of software in a Scrum team is not easy. As Agile software development favours continuous development in short iterations, the software testing activity should be completely integrated with the requirements and coding activities, not postponed at the end like in a traditional Waterfall approach.

JMeter: the new standard for load testing

Apache JMeter is open source software Java desktop application, designed to load test and measure performance of web sites. It was originally designed for load testing web applications but has since expanded to other test functions.

Apache JMeter may be used to test performance both on static and dynamic resources (files, Servlets, Perl scripts, Java Objects, Data Bases and Queries, FTP Servers and more). It can be used to simulate a heavy load on a server, network or object to test its strength or to analyze overall performance under different load types. You can use it to make a graphical analysis of performance or to test your server/script/object behavior under heavy concurrent load.

A important ecosystem has been developped around JMeter. Many companies are offering load  testing services based on JMeter, like Amazon or Blazemeter. There are also many JMeter plugins that have been created to extend its functionalities and better exploit the data provided by this open source load testing tools.

You can get more informatoin and download JMeter from http://jmeter.apache.org/index.html

Mobile Applications Testing Bug Management

The key activity between the discovery of a bug during a software testing session and its resolution is bug management. I have found an interesting article where Jonathan Kohl discusses how to log and describes bugs on when you test mobile applications, which is part of an upcoming book on mobile apps testing.His opinions is that the difference between getting an issue addressed and fixed or bug getting ignored often has to deal with the accuracy of the information that is contained in the bug report. In the article he provides some tips to follow when you notice something that should be dealt with and how to report it well.

Speeding Up Java Unit Testing

The Java Tutorials and Videos web site has published an interesting article titled "Speeding Up Java Test Code". This article explains that there are two distinct areas where we can work to improve the speed of our feedback cycle: code and build. The author shows you how to speed up your Java test code.One of the advice is that you don’t want your test to set up things you’ll never use. Another recommendation is that you should avoid making network calls in your unit tests. More specifically, we should see that the code we’re testing doesn’t access the network because calling the neighbors is a seriously slow conversation. We also want to minimize access to the file system in order to keep our tests fast. Keeping these in mind is a good idea if your feedback loop starts growing too long.

Automated Acceptance Tests and Requirements Traceability

This article on Automated Acceptance Tests illustrates an approach to automated acceptance testing when you develop software with Java. The acceptance tests are connected to the software requirements. The main factor to achieve maintainable tests is to manage correctly the traceability between the requirements and implementation as well as between the requirements and acceptance tests.

http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=118

Mocking Frameworks in .NET Introduction

There are several open source unit testing tools to apply mocking principles in .NET. Tools like Rhino Mocks, Automoq and Moq allow us to create mocks and stubs within our test method. These tools have a learning curve, but the video ".NET Mocking Frameworks" presents techniques that can ease you into these frameworks and help you automated your unit testing process.

Scenarios for Load Testing

This article explains how to build a portfolio of scenarios for software load testing automation. You have rarely only a single scenario to test, so you have to decide which scenarios to include in your test plans. Criticality, frequency, difficulty and verifiability are the four key factors that should be considered to determine the scenarios to automate. Choosing the right scenarios is an essential key factor to ensure the success of your load testing automation strategy.

Software Test Engineer, Microsoft , Minneapolis, MN

Are you passionate about user experience? Would you like to impact the tools people will use to build rich user experiences on top of some of the coolest technologies in the company? Do you have a vision of where Test needs to be in 5-10 years and the drive to help us get there? If so, a position on the Expression Blend TCDC (Twin Cities Development Center) team might be for you.

The Expression organization delivers products to create great, highly interactive user experiences on Microsoft’s platforms. We are a fast-paced, focused group, located in St.Paul, Minnesota that works directly with the Redmond team to deliver products both for developers and for the professional design community. We have already made major contributions to the highly regarded Expression test stack and are looking to push the envelope even further.

Our team’s charter is to deliver a rich user experience for building highly interactive, modern applications from prototyping stage to final publication. Like any start-up, we need flexible people that are comfortable working in a very dynamic and agile environment.

To get more informations and to apply visit http://www.softdevjobs.com/job/software-test-engineer-sdet-ii-minneapolis-mn-microsoft-27d004b056/

The Art of Mocking

This article "The Art of Mocking" covers the subject of software testing mocks (also known as test doubles, stubs and fakes, amongst other names). It compares also the creation manual mocks with the usage of a full-fledged mocking framework with examples in the .NET language.

Read it on http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=122

Selenium - Automated WebTesting

Selenium is a popular tool for writing automated tests of web applications. You can develop automated tests in the programming language of your choice such as c#, java, python, php, perl and ruby as well as running those tests on different combination of browsers such as Chrome, Firefox or IE.

http://www.methodsandtools.com/tools/tools.php?selenium

Unit Testing and Mocking Tools Directory

The Unit Testing and Mocking Tools Directory presents a list of unit testing and mocking tools for C/C++, Java, Javascript, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, Flex, etc.

http://www.unittestingtools.com/

Java Software Quality Analysis

This is an interesting report on Java Software Quality Analysis where Java quality analysis tools ( Coverity, Headway Software, Parasoft, Sonar and XDepend) analyze the same open source project.

http://blog.martinig.ch/conferences/quality-analysis-evening-with-the-java-user-group-lausanne/

SoapUI - Web Testing Framework

SoapUI is an open source application and framework to test web applications and web services. Test cases can be entered using a graphical user interface and they can be executed using the graphical user interface or embedded in Apache Ant or Apache Maven.

Load Testing Tools Adoption Survey

The last Methods & Tools survey wanted to determine the level of adoption of load testing tools in organizations. It asked the following question: “Do you use a tool for load / performance testing?”

I use tools for load testing	48%
My organization has tools, but my project or I do not use them	20%
My organization has no tools for load testing	32%

Participants: 182
Ending date: January 2011
Source: Methods & Tools Load Testing Tools Survey

Additional resources:
* JMeter presentation
* Load Testing Section of the Software Development Articles Directory
* Load Testing Section of the Software Development Tools Directory
* Load testing tools directory

Bromine - Test Management for Selenium

I have found an interesting presentation of the Bromine software testing tool. Bromine can be described as an open source management tool for Selenium. It offers is a way to organize your test scripts and easily run them in different browsers and operating systems.

Junit Java Unit Testing Tool Presentation

Methods & Tools, a free software development magazine available on the web, has published a presentation of JUnit. JUnit is a Java library for unit testing, which has advanced to the de-facto standard in unit testing. By using JUnit, you can assert that methods in your Java code work as designed, without the need to set up the complete application.

Continuous Integration: Continuous Build or Continuous Quality Control?

The last Methods & Tools poll wanted to determine the level of adoption of continuous integration tools in organizations. The following question was asked: “Do you use a tool for continuous integration (automated build and unit testing)?”

I use tools for continuous integration	66%
My organization has tools, but my project or I do not use them	13%
My organization has no tools for continuous integration	21%

Participants: 130
Ending date: September 2010
Source: Methods & Tools Continuous Integration Tools Survey

A large majority of the participants is using continuous integration tools, but it remains to see how continuous is the continuous integration used by participants. It is easy to understand that this practice is one of the easiest to put in place as it is basically a pure technical issue of combining the build process with the unit testing tools. However, previous Methods & Tools unit testing execution surveys performed in 2006 and 2008 on showed that between 50% and 60% of participants were not using unit tests or were doing them in an informal way. Continuous integration could thus be considered by organizations more as a continuous build process that a continuous testing of the code quality.

Resources:

* Continuous Integration Feature Matrix
* Continuous Integration: The Cornerstone of a Great Shop
* Continuous Integration Tools directory

JMeter Load Testing Tool Presentation

An interesting presentation of the load testing tool JMeter has been published by the software development magazine Methods & Tools. Apache JMeter is open source software, a 100% pure Java desktop application designed to (load) test functional behavior and measure performance. It was originally designed for testing Web Applications but has since expanded to other test functions.

GWT Testing Best Practices

GWT has a lot of little-publicized infrastructure that can help you build apps The Right Way: test-driven development, code coverage, comprehensive unit tests, and integration testing using Selenium or WebDriver. This GWT Testing Best Practices session will survey GWT’s testing infrastructure, describe some best practices we’ve developed at Google, and help you avoid common pitfalls.

Contract Tests in JUnit 4

J.B. Rainsberger talked about how contract tests can be used to test the interaction between classes when using a mockist approach to developer testing. He wondered aloud if it would be possible to write these kinds of tests using abstract classes and JUnit 4. The answer is yes, with some caveats, as Ben Rady demonstrates it. You can watch this presentation called "Contract Tests in JUnit 4" on the directory of Java videos and tutorials.