I thought I throw my grudge out of the window against Scala and try something with it. I also got my hands on a fairly new book, called: “Learning Scala: Practical Functional Programming for the JVM”. Turns out to be a rather fun book to read. And Jason Swartz has a nice way of writing. So I wanted to play around with Play 2 Framework. It now comes packaged in Activator. So, I started the long path from almost zero to handle all that. I’m running the latest Ubuntu ( 14 ) and latest Java ( 8 ). The list: Scala, SBT, IntelliJ, Play ( through activator ). ...

Hello everybody. Today, I would like to write about little observation I made along the way of being a tester. The title says it all. I think Testers, are like scientists. I would go even further, and say: Testers, are scientists. Let us see how the two compare. ...

Hello Everybody. This time I’d like to write about the expressiveness of a Test. I think that it’s very important to write understandable and expressive tests. In older times I was studying novel writing. There is a rule which a novel needs to follow. It goes something like this: “A novel needs to lead its reader and make him understand in the simplest way what’s going on, with whom and why?”. In other words, it’s not a puzzle. It should be obvious what the test is trying to do and it should not require the reader to try and solve it in order to understand it. ...

Hello everybody. I would like to share with you a small script I wrote to update all, or a single, Jenkins job from a Python script remotely. This will enable you to update a Jenkins job from anywhere using an admin credential based on a config.xml template that you have. With this, if you want to apply a config change to all or just a single job in Jenkins, you don’t have to go and do it for all the rest. You just call this script and it will cycle through all the jobs you have and update them if the begin with “yourpipelinedelimiter” or if they aren’t in a restricted list of jobs. The delimiter helps to identify pipelines which are dev pipelines. If you have multiple pipelines which are helpers or builders and you don’t usually apply the same config to them, than the delimiter can help identify the dev pipelines you actually want to update. ...

Hi Folks! I just wanted to share with you my mind map on the seven principles of Context Driven Testing. I used the notion of dragons since it’s seven. And a dragon is usually seven headed in my mind. So without further ado. Click for larger image. I have a hand drawn as well but I’m guessing that one wouldn’t be of much use since it follows my own imagination. ...

Hello Everybody. Today I’d like to write a little bit about a python course I did. It’s an 8 week course on algorithmic programming with fun little projects. I’d like to write down some of my solutions with pseudo code for my own better understanding and for the sake of sharing knowledge. I won’t, however, share full projects since that would be against the honour code. Let’s begin. ...

Hello Folks. So last I was writing about why a tester should learn Javascript. Today I would like to write about why a tester should learn SQL. There, I said it. I know many people, especially testers, don’t like SQL. They view it as a monster best be avoided. Something only Database people will know. Something which is so scary and ugly, nobody really wants it. But I will give you a couple of good reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid of SQL. And why you should welcome it as your best friend and partner in crime. Let’s go. ...

Is TDD dead? Not really. So let’s talk about this topic for a little bit. I’m sure you already read a gazillion posts about this debate but frankly I’m writing this for myself, to rant a little bit, you know. Because somebody is wrong on the internet and I must intervene. ...

Hello everybody. Today I would like to write about a very interesting topic, I hope. So let’s get started. As the title already suggests, I’m writing about why a front-end tester should learn at least a little bit about JavaScripting and the DOM. Ohhh and contrary to the belief CSP ( Content Security Policy ) will not be the death of such scripts. There are white-lists and workarounds and exclusions which can be implemented in order to allow local JavaScripting to continue. So don’t fret. Read on. ...

Hello Everybody. Today I would like to tell you about a little conversation I had with my friend Adrian. The topic was about how, when and what to log during a testing session regarding a story. So let’s see what came out of that talk. Logging your work The question is really not whether you should log your work or not, but rather to what extend. Because we all know that you should log your work. It helps you recall and helps you organize and think out testing strategies. But the extend and methods are a big question. So here is my routine. ...