Testing Your Tests: Securing Confidence In Your Automation

[presentation]
by
Max Saperstone
Summary: 

The growth of automation testing in today’s software development organizations is changing the way we test applications. Software development practices have matured over the last thirty years to include all forms of testing in order to verify software quality. In the last ten years, there has been a huge spike in the adoption of automated tests, effectively replacing some manual testing practices and supplementing traditional testing activities. Many parts of the software development industry, however, are wary of replacing manual testing with automated testing. Not only is there often a lack of confidence in the automation tests, but some also see automated testing as fragile, unmaintainable, and, ultimately, something with a low return on investment. Max believes that by employing mature software development techniques, we can achieve robust, maintainable tests that deliver confidence in the application under test. In addition to discussing how to structure automated tests that are cleaner, more maintainable, and efficient, Max also will detail developer testing and deployment techniques that can be used to programmatically verify test correctness. Drawing on his experiences building test automation and frameworks and advising organizations, Max will walk us through how to mature your test automation practices.

About the Presenter

Max Saperstone has been working as a software and test engineer for over a decade, with a focus on test automation within the CI/CD process. He specializes in open source tools, including the Selenium tool suite, JMeter, AutoIT, Cucumber, and Chef. Max has led several test automation efforts, including developing an automated suite focusing on web-based software to operate over several applications for Kronos Federal. He also headed a project with Delta Dental, developing an automated testing structure to run Cucumber tests over multiple test interfaces and environments, while also developing a system to keep test data "ageless." He currently heads up the development of Selenified, an open source testing framework to allow for testing of multiple interfaces, custom reporting, and minimal test upkeep.

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