April 2015 Summaries

### Mobile app testing is a complex task due to the diverse range of devices and operating systems available. The process requires a balanced approach, understanding the company's mobile strategy, target device selection, and choosing the right tool for automation testing. Effective functional testing eases pressure on device manufacturers while allowing application developers to collect applicable metrics that improve product quality. Mobile testing tools are relatively new, and developing an automation strategy specific to the organization ensures maximum business value is obtained from the automation tool.

### Mobile Continuous Integration: A Key for Successful Apps Mobile continuous integration (CI) is an essential practice for mobile app development teams. Although CI has been around since 1994, its adoption in the mobile industry was slow due to unique challenges such as infrastructure and testing requirements. However, with the evolution of tools and platforms, mobile dev teams can now benefit from a solid CI system. The author highlights three key reasons for using CI with mobile products: no-touch configuration, automated over-the-air (OTA) distribution, and builds and tests. Mobile CI differs from web CI due to infrastructure, compilation/code signing, testing, deployment, simulators/emulators, real devices, and the need for specialized tools such as Ship.io, Greenhouse CI, Travis CI, XCTest, JUnit, Appium, KIF, and others. The author emphasizes that setting up CI for mobile dev teams requires careful consideration of their specific needs and budget, often starting with automating obvious pain points and gradually expanding to more complex processes.

As QA teams adapt to changes in the development world, they will face both positive and negative challenges. With increasing application complexity, QA efforts are expected to become more comprehensive, using better tools, automation, and cloud-based testing infrastructure. However, this may lead to decreased quality if not managed properly. On the other hand, the shift towards QE (Quality Engineering) is expected to benefit everyone, as it focuses on testing strategy and architecture over specific testing, facilitating communication between IT and developers. The role of QE will expand to team-wide leadership, enabling them to provide strategic guidance and identify bugs before they reach production. In an enterprise setting, QA teams will gain purchasing power and become bigger technical influencers, driving the adoption of new tools and processes. Ultimately, automation will be clear in its benefits, but implementing it will require careful planning and understanding from all involved parties.

The number of browser-based scripts and the decrease in test cycle time are not directly correlated. Instead, automation provides a set of information that helps reduce the time wasted by manual testers exploring bad builds or re-checking things, ultimately decreasing test cycle time.

Speeding up Selenium with Application Mocks` is a technique that combines parallel testing grids with application mocks to improve the performance of functional tests in Selenium. By removing the back end from the application, creating an application mock, and using optimized infrastructure, test runs can be completed faster without causing delays in application releases. This approach offers several benefits, including faster testing, fewer delays, less time cost for failed tests, faster iterations on front-end bugs, and continuous testing. However, it also has some downsides, such as the inability to identify back-end to front-end related bugs and ongoing maintenance requirements. The initial setup of the mock environment requires some work, but is worthwhile in exchange for the benefits. The process involves deploying the current version of the application to a limited infrastructure, wiring up the integration setup, modifying the application, and configuring Sauce Connect and log analysis on the testing infrastructure. This approach can be applied to web applications and mobile applications with API capabilities, allowing front-end developers to test their code continuously and preventing failed test runs or slow Selenium scripts from delaying releases.

Practical Tips and Tricks for Selenium Test Automation` is a webinar presented by Dave Haeffner, author of `The Selenium Guidebook`, where he shares useful tips and tricks from his weekly newsletter. The presentation covers various topics such as headless test execution, testing HTTP status codes, blacklisting third-party content, load testing, broken image checking, testing forgot password functionality, A/B testing, file downloads, and additional debugging output. The webinar also includes visual testing and cross-browser testing. After the presentation, there will be a live Q&A session with Dave Haeffner and a Q&A following the end of the presentation as well.