September 2019 Summaries

Software testing drives value for companies by keeping customers happy, making workers more productive, reducing development and maintenance costs, minimizing infrastructure costs, and adding financial value. Thorough software testing ensures that applications meet quality expectations, improving user experience and reducing the likelihood of customers abandoning products. It also identifies issues early in the development cycle, minimizes the need for costly debugging, reduces the size and cost of IT teams, and optimizes infrastructure spend by identifying areas to improve performance and usability. By investing in software testing, companies can maximize revenue and profitability while minimizing costs, making it a critical component of their overall success.

Appium is used to automate native iOS and Android apps, but it can be slow due to the complexity of the UI hierarchies. The main reason for this slowness is that Appium translates the views into XML, which takes time, especially if the app has many elements. This process is necessary because XPATH is not a native language for iOS, and Appium needs to perform magic to translate the XPath query into actual element objects. To speed up test execution, it's recommended to use accessibility IDs as a locator strategy, which are already indexed and can be queried directly on the views. Additionally, using iOS predicate strings and class names can also improve performance, while XPATH should be used with caution due to its brittleness and slowness. By understanding how Appium works and choosing the right locator strategy, developers can optimize their native app automation scripts and significantly speed up test execution time.

Front-end performance testing is crucial for ensuring an application's user experience, but it poses several challenges. One major pain point is manually testing applications, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Test automation is a solution, but scaling it can be difficult. Another challenge is testing for real-world scenarios, including devices with varying operating systems, screen sizes, and models. Distinguishing front-end issues from back-end problems requires careful analysis of metrics such as Time to First Byte (TTFB) and logs. Continuous testing is essential, shifting testing left and right within the development pipeline, using methods like headless testing and canary testing. Finally, varying test scripts across devices and environments can lead to inaccurate results, highlighting the need for a cloud-based testing solution that maintains consistency among different testing environments.

4 New Technologies That Are Changing Software Testing` Software testing is increasingly influenced by advancements in technology, with many new tools and techniques being adopted to improve efficiency and effectiveness. One trend is the shift-left approach, where testing happens alongside development, using technologies like GitOps to enable early feedback on code quality. Another trend is the rise of continuous deployments, which requires testing to shift right into production environments, enabling faster deployment cycles and improved user experiences. The explosion of platforms and devices has led to a need for cross-platform testing solutions, while machines are increasingly being used to test other machines, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate testing processes. By embracing these advancements, QA teams can remain indispensable and build the application experiences of tomorrow.