Blog Posts Index

Subscribe to the full blog feed using RSS

Risks, Issues, Benefits Of Tactically Automating Twitter Case Study

Dec 3, 2019 - 11 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester

TLDR; Every approach to automating has risks, issues and benefits. Often we don’t think these through. When we do we will see that automating has a different set of answers than automating strategically. This helps reinforce the difference, without having to stick to definitions. In my conference talks and on my blog I make a distinction between Automating Tactically and Strategically. In this blog post I will conduct an exercise to look at the benefits, risks and issues associated with a particular example of automating tactically.

Automating Deselection and Unchecking of Twitter Interests

Nov 25, 2019 - 6 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester

TLDR; I automated the unchecking of all Twitter Interests using simple JavaScript at the console. I explain the code I wrote, and how I wrote it to act as a case study in Tactical Automation.

Twitter Interests have been automatically collated. You can manually review and amend these (there might be hundreds). I decided to uncheck them all. And did so automatically.

How to Ask for Help and Support Online

Nov 22, 2019 - 11 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester

TLDR; Be clear in what you want. Do work and research on your own first. Explain your current position to provide context for what you have done. Do look for help to take the responsible next action.

I want to help people. Everyone who puts content online wants to help people. But often I am unable to help, due to the volume of contact requests and the way that people write their help requests.

Here are a few notes on how to contact people online from whom you want help and support. And how to make it easier for them to respond to your help requests. Including some notes on how I prefer to deal with requests.

How to Proxy Localhost or Docker

Nov 18, 2019 - 1 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester

TLDR; Use a proxy against localhost by using your machine name or private ip address from ifconfig (or ipconfig).

How to model data shared by Page Objects?

Nov 12, 2019 - 5 minute read - Selenium Simplified Blog WebDriver Test Automation

TLDR; use abstractions for precision and create new abstraction layers which model state and data flow rather than adding it to lower level classes.

This post was created as a response to a question I was asked over email regarding approaches for modelling data re-use in abstractions.

Journaling and the October 2019 EvilTester.com and Patreon Content Summary

Nov 7, 2019 - 6 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester Summaries

TLDR; Some notes on journaling (a useful process, you should use it), and then all the public content created as a result of journaling over the month of October…

Good Testing Requires Technological Understanding and Appropriate Tools

Nov 1, 2019 - 6 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester slogans

What does it mean for Buggy Software to be normal? Does that mean we get complacent? What can we learn by coding in JavaScript and HTML? Do we reach for professional tools too quickly? Or even not at all? This collection of micro posts answers these questions, and provides some exercises and tool links. The following slogans were all automatically generated by The Evil Tester Sloganizer. And I then thought about what they might mean, and posted my reflections on Instagram.

On Goodness, Automation and Modelling

Oct 29, 2019 - 7 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester slogans

This blog post is a collation of micro-blog posts which were reflections on slogans generated by The Evil Tester Sloganizer, and uploaded to LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Covering topics such as What does Completely mean? and what does the concept of “Good” mean on a project? Could it help if we though Testing was all about automation? The following slogans were all automatically generated by The Evil Tester Sloganizer. And I then thought about what they might mean, and posted my reflections on Instagram.

Reflections on Names, Nasty, Variation and Mystery

Oct 22, 2019 - 3 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester slogans

This blog post is a collation of micro-blog posts which were reflections on slogans generated by The Evil Tester Sloganizer, and uploaded to LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Covering topics such as “being nasty”, varying what we do, investigating mystery, role naming and therapy. The following slogans were all automatically generated by The Evil Tester Sloganizer. And I then thought about what they might mean, and posted my reflections on Instagram.

How to Randomize your Software Testing Thought Process

Oct 18, 2019 - 5 minute read - Software Testing Evil Tester

TLDR; Variation in testing often leds us to test data, flows and environments. We can increase the chance that we learn something relevant by reading more blogs, watching YouTube and attending conferences. We can also trigger insights, that we ourselves have gained, by reading meaning into unrelated text, content or koans.