A QA-guy blog

I spent around 10 years of my career writing all sorts of automation. Whenever I hear another company working on yet another breakthrough in automation it gives me a bitter smile. Let me explain why. (and it is not another `automation is impossible` rant) The other day I was having breakfast at McDonald's, where I noticed how few employees they had on shift, yet able to serve quite a few customers. I worked at McDonald's and I remember that cashier work was particularly challenging - usually one had to take orders and prepare orders at the same time, all in 120 seconds 9 (it was in Russia 20 years ago, I might be slightly wrong with figures, but you get the point). A Cashier was also supposed to smile and let you feel welcome. Now they have self-checkout stations, leading to funny results: Order preparation is nowhere near 120 seconds. It takes ages now, to be honest. They employ fewer people. You know, crew members at McDonald's don't usually have a line of job of...

Intro I turn on my TV-set. I start my favourite TV application to watch a TV-show. It says there's a new version and insists on updating. Would I have access to new TV-shows or movies after this update? Not at all! Would this application work faster after that? Hardly. Would it be more stable? Hopefully, but no guarantees. What would this update give me? New UI (I was OK with the old one). Ability to choose which trailer I would like to watch (like I need more than one). It eats my internet traffic and time and gives me nothing of value in turn. I need to sort out my finances. I take my cell phone. I start an accounting application that works with my bank. It wouldn't start. Connectivity issue - it says. In reality - what I need is to go to Google Play and update the application. After the update, it looks slightly different, has some new feature I don't need and would hardly use and obfuscates previously learnt path to the features I need. The problem Both...

I have published several posts with the aim to deliver one message - sometimes it is more efficient (fast and convenient) to change the application under test (make it more testable or eliminate the need for testing at all) then invent or employ complicated test automation techniques to check the same functionality. Even though there was a lot of misunderstanding caused by badly forming those posts, I still think I stroke something deeper. For instance, this twitter post made me think that we speak two different languages: That's like asking a pharma company to self-certify that their drugs are safe without any independent approval! #softwaretesting #CIO — Ayush Trivedi (@ayushtrivedi) 4 September 2017 Now it started to seem to me that there're two different views on what test automation is. First, probably prevailing point of view is that test automation is a part of ages-old traditional QA process, where test automation specialist is just a test specialist usin...

Looking through the LinkedIn feed I see a horrible thing. I think we can call it "Industry Carelessness". I see lots of posts of the kind: Automating testing using XXXXium Digital transformation using microservices architecture (please download our brochure) We will transform your business, here's how And so on. This is very disturbing. It is like "we don't know what the problem you have (if any) but we have a solution already!" Moreover, I worked for a company whose whole business model was like that, which was delivering what it had in place instead of what was necessary. I interviewed employees who did not know where we were but already knew where we should go and how do we go there. "Ok, we shall do this and that". "Hold on a second, don't you want to know what we already do and what results we get? "Not necessary, the industry goes into that direction so let's do thing 'right'" And even worse, I wa...

So what it means to have effective test automation? Let's say I can automate 10 000 tests a day. Impressive number, isn't it? Does it mean that my test automation effective? Hardly we can tell without knowing other things. Turns out that test automation effectiveness has little to do with how many tests you can automate a day. To judge effectiveness we need to think about what value test automation adds. That leads me to a thought that test automation may be really the wrong term. Test automation is an activity, not a product. Even worse, the product that test automation creates (the value it produces) may be created by other means, too. What value test automation creates? Faster execution of 70 000 UI test scenarios? Don't think so. Nice test result report? Well, maybe, but not necessarily. My favourite one, "elimination of human error in testing". I will not even bother to comment. So the value it creates? My best guess nowadays would be that testing is a...

There's something that I haven't seen in the education plan of IT degrees ever - professional ethics, and I think it is a huge miss. Ethics is being taught for lawyers, MD, teachers and lots of other degrees. Ethics tells us that there's something beyond our job responsibilities. Ethics reminds us that the one who is footing the bill may not be the final decision maker of everything. That if something is legal, it yet does not mean it is a right thing to do. Let me share a story about one of my previous project. I was working for an IT services company and we were helping our client to deliver a new version of the software. A peculiar thing was that if there were a bug in the Product, then something horrible could happen (in the worst case - somebody could die). And I was the quality guy on a project. Our sponsor (the one, who was footing the bill, and ultimate decision maker) had his deadlines. He already made a demo for marketing people and wanted to ship the softwar...