July 2015 Summaries

Enabling Continuous Delivery of Mobile Apps for Enterprises is crucial as mobile apps are increasingly used to interact with customers, and updating them regularly is essential. To achieve this, organizations must understand the different solutions, overcome unique challenges, and ensure the right ownership of processes. The webinar will cover the value of CI/CD in mobile development, CI/CD architecture for mobile application platforms, a case study, demo, and Q&A session with experts. It also provides a free white paper on why CI should be part of mobile development process.

The article highlights the importance of communication in software development teams and how Quality Assurance (QA) can play a crucial role in enhancing team collaboration. It argues that QA is not just about testing, but also about fostering communication and collaboration among team members to ensure everyone is invested in quality. The author suggests that testers can help bridge gaps in communication by working with engineers and designers to understand the big picture, business value, and user story. By adopting practices like Specification by Example (ATDD), QA teams can get everyone on the same page, ensuring that everyone understands the acceptance criteria and works towards a common goal. The article emphasizes the need for team members to take ownership of quality and encourages readers to use their testers as a valuable resource in improving communication and collaboration within their teams.

Don't Let Them Leapfrog You`, a passage by Ashley Hunsberger, discusses the benefits of embracing continuous delivery and DevOps in software development. It highlights two companies, A and B, where company B adopts continuous integration, acceptance test driven development, and builds quality in, resulting in faster time to market, better quality product, reduced cost of development, higher customer satisfaction, and a cultural shift within the organization. The passage emphasizes that this is not just a process change but a significant cultural shift that impacts the entire company, and that companies should take their time to adapt to continuous delivery to avoid being left behind by competition.

The text discusses the benefits of automated testing in mobile app development, highlighting how it can save time, reduce errors, and improve the overall quality of the software. Automated testing allows for 24/7 testing, reducing the need for human resources and increasing efficiency. It also enables reusability of scripts, reliability, simultaneity, continuity, and the ability to run stress tests on a large scale. Additionally, automated testing helps identify bugs early, reduces expenses, and improves user experience through manual user-friendly tests. However, it has its limitations, such as not being able to fix specific problems or test effective usability, which requires manual testing for those scenarios. A combination of both automated and manual testing is recommended for optimal results.

An Efficient Release Made is a Penny Earned` Everyone wants to save money and deliver faster in software development. However, many organizations still rely on manual testing, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Adopting continuous integration (CI) and automated tests can improve productivity, reduce bugs, and increase the quality of releases. By building quality into the development process, rather than just testing it at the end, developers and designers can contribute to ensuring that every aspect of the software meets the required standards. This approach can also reduce manual testing costs and make releases faster and more reliable. Furthermore, reducing unnecessary meetings can boost productivity and save companies money. By implementing simple guidelines for meetings, such as spending more time on the agenda, inviting the right people, and ending meetings on time, organizations can start to see real returns on investment in their software development efforts.

The concept of DevOps has become a buzzword in the software development industry, creating both excitement and confusion among its supporters. The practice of DevOps is not new but has gained significant attention over the last two years. DevOps Analyst Chris Riley will share his perspective on the movement and its future, as well as provide knowledge gathered from tools vendors and practitioners to help attendees navigate the current conversations about DevOps. The webinar will cover key topics such as the difference between DevOps practice and the movement, the intersection of DevOps and QA teams, and what the future holds for this rapidly evolving field.

The Appium + Sauce Labs Bootcamp discusses testing hybrid apps and mobile web applications using Appium. Hybrid apps can be a mix of native and web-based components, while mobile web applications run in a browser on the device. Appium supports two contexts: native and webview, which determine how commands are interpreted and executed. The native context executes against the device vendor's automation API, allowing access to views and elements through name or accessibility id, as well as interacting directly with the device. In contrast, the webview context uses standard WebDriver commands to interact with web application elements through CSS selectors or other web-specific locators. Switching between contexts can be done using a method that takes the string name of the desired context. Once in the webview context, Selenium commands can be used to automate web applications. The native context provides access to an xml document describing the view's elements, not the HTML even if there is HTML being rendered. Querying contexts allows choosing from available contexts and switching between them. Additionally, multi-tabbed web browsers are accessible through the window commands in a webview context.

The "Communication Trap" refers to the phenomenon where developers and QA professionals hear "it doesn't work on my machine" repeatedly, indicating that there is a lack of consistency in bug reporting. This can lead to wasted time and resources as bugs are reported with insufficient information, causing back-and-forth between the reporter and the engineer trying to reproduce the issue. To avoid this, having a uniform language/template for bug reports can help reduce uncertainty and speed up resolution. A good template should include key details such as summary/title, environment, build, devices, priority, steps to reproduce, expected result vs. actual result, requirements, and wireframes, which helps ensure clarity and promotes consistency across the team, regardless of who enters the ticket.