December 2019 Summaries

Fragmentation testing involves assessing the compatibility of software applications across various devices, platforms, and browsers. Risk-based testing strategy prioritizes parts of an app or devices with high risk associated with them. The risk is calculated by multiplying probability and impact. This approach helps in deciding which functionality within an app should receive more attention and where to focus testing efforts. Fragmentation can also occur between different release versions of the same app, making monitoring crucial for detecting major issues in time. Using crash data as valuable test input can lead to a targeted, efficient test suite.

In 2019, BrowserStack made significant improvements to its platform, including launching a new Data Center in US East for faster connections, hosting a meetup in the Bay Area with industry experts discussing various aspects of QA, redesigning the Automate and App Automate dashboards for better user experience, adding iPhone 11 to their Real Device Cloud, and integrating with Slack, Jira, App Center, React developer tools, and more. They also started a blog series on "Testing for Fragmentation" and partnered with GitHub to provide free access to BrowserStack Automate Mobile for students in the GitHub Student Developer Pack program.

Dr.-Ing. Mario Heiderich is the creator of DOMPurify, an XSS sanitizer for HTML. As a security researcher from Berlin and leader of Cure53 company, he focuses on creating robust, reliable, fast, and secure sanitization libraries like DOMPurify. The project aims to prevent common attacks such as XSS and DOM clobbering by removing risky elements from user-contributed HTML. Mario emphasizes the importance of maintaining a minimal feature set to ensure security and stability in his work. He also highlights the significance of not trusting users, browsers, or anyone else when it comes to development security. Mario's passion for creating better tools and ensuring quality has driven him to maintain a comprehensive test suite and review every commit and PR carefully.

Fragmentation testing is crucial for ensuring global compatibility of user experience (UX) across various devices, platforms, and browsers. The blog series "Testing for Fragmentation" discusses market data on these aspects and how developers can account for them during software development and testing. Different countries have unique fragmentation nuances that need to be considered if a business has a presence in those markets or plans to expand there. For instance, the United States has a strong market share of Apple devices, while India's fragmentation landscape is highly complex due to various brands and models dominating the market. Similarly, Nigeria has unique mobile browser preferences like Opera leading the market. Being aware of these differences and incorporating them into cross-browser test suites can minimize risks associated with global compatibility.

In the Open Source Spotlight feature, Daniel Rotter, creator of Sulu—a Symfony CMS designed to help content teams deliver complex sites and great user experiences—is highlighted. The idea for Sulu was born from a lack of existing options based on the Symfony framework. Today, Sulu is used by developers worldwide. Looking ahead, Sulu 2.0 focuses on improving its frontend stack with React, while future plans include enhancing content storage mechanisms and applying more Domain Driven Design principles in server-side code. Daniel emphasizes the importance of knowing when to apply different concepts based on project priorities and highlights the value of automated testing tools like PHPUnit, Jest, and static code analyzers. He also shares his preference for networking through real-world events and using minimalist productivity hacks such as working on the console and splitting problems into smaller parts.