Google Killing URLs, what does it mean for testing?
TESTING AND THE COMMUNITY
State of Behavior Driven Development — The results!
BDD is an approach to software development that aims to redefine team collaboration and align all the stakeholders on the same goal. For the second year running, Hiptest launched its State of BDD survey to learn more about BDD usage and adoption among teams. Discover the results now!
Testers’ Island Discs Ep23 — Elizabeth Zagroba by Neil Studd
We kick-off a bumper month of episodes with a visit to the island by Elizabeth Zagroba, to talk about the ideas behind her upcoming presentation at TestBash Germany, entitled “Doubt Builds Trust”. Among the discussions, there are debates about the challenges of saying “I don’t know”, stories about exploring doubt within interview situations, and thoughts about the relationship between doubt and curiosity. Plus, Neil finally finds a way for his frequent screw-ups to reinforce a salient point!
Discover the Testing Community at TestBash San Francisco
Come to TestBash San Francisco and learn from both leading and practising software testers. We’ve chosen the most relevant topics to help you become the best software tester possible. Early bird tickets end on 30th September.
An Intro to Web Site Testing with Cypress By Devon Campbell
Cypress is a new-ish test runner with some features that take some of the friction out of end-to-end testing.
Google Killing URLs, what does it mean for testing? by Rosie
I stumbled across this post on Wired about Google Chrome and the future of URLs. Partly I’m thinking testers should be aware of this stuff, whether the Google AMP thing goes ahead or not. As new tech and approaches come in, we need to consider what this means for testing. What problems can incur from the above for your project(s)?
Demystifying Machine Learning, Part 1 by Jeff Nyman
My hope, and my goal, is that these posts will be relevant to anyone who wants to get involved in machine learning. Obviously one of my core focal points is that of testing and those who practice the discipline. Right now there is a lot of work being done in machine learning around test supporting tools.
Why You Should Stop Asking for First and Last Names on Forms by Colleen PowersEntering your name (or your child’s name) in online forms is part of everyday life on the internet — and those forms often separate “First Name” and “Last Name.” We’ve realized, however, that that doesn’t include everyone, and have been encouraging our clients to switch to a single “Name” form.
Make a technical debt payment plan by Trish Khoo
“Any testing at all would be great for this project but I don’t even know where to start!”. I heard someone say this recently and it’s a predicament I’ve seen many times.
TSB CEO leaves bank after IT fiasco batters brand by Emma Rumney, Sinead Cruise
Paul Pester, the chief executive of Britain’s crisis-hit TSB Bank, is stepping down after months of pressure following a botched IT project that has cost more than 200 million euros (180 million pounds).
Get on our radar by submitting your blog to our Testing Feeds or emailing something interesting to community@ministryoftesting.com
BUSINESS BLOG POSTS
A Guide to Successful User Acceptance Testing for Websites and Digital Products by Klaus-M. Schremser
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is one of the most important tests companies need to perform before launching a website or product. Especially if they are developing websites or digital products for clients in their daily business like agencies do.
XSS using quirky implementations of ACME http-01 by Frans Rosén & Linus Särud
Some hosting providers implemented http-01 having one part of the challenge key reflected in the response. This resulted in a huge amount of websites being vulnerable to XSS just because of their implementation of the http-01 ACME-challenge.
What Is Holding A Software Tester From Finding Bugs? by Harshit Paul
Every major product on the internet is trying to expand their reach to full potential by accomplishing the goal of Web Interoperability.
5 Elements of Good, Maintainable Unit Tests by Kathryn Nest
Some people say you should think of a unit test not just as a test but also as a kind of specification for the software. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement and one of its most important consequences is that a good, maintainable unit test should be very easy to read.
PODCASTS
Driving Innovation in Testing at Mabl with Lisa Crispin by Joe Colantonio
Are you looking for ways to improve your continuous delivery testing process? Want to start incorporating new technologies like AI and machine learning to accomplish that? In this episode testing Lisa Crispin will share her views and tips on testing and continuous delivery as well as what she’ll be doing in her new role as a testing advocate at Mabl.
Episode 4 — Maaret Pyhajarvi — Working Together Is Hard by The Guilty Tester
Do you ever feel guilty for not meeting the standards set by others in the Software Testing community? Okay, let’s talk about that then.
46: Testing Hard To Test Applications — Anthony Shaw by Test and Code
How do you write tests for things that aren’t that easy to write tests for? That question is a possibly terrible summary of a question sent to me by a listener. And to help me start answering that question, I asked a friend of mine to help, Antony Shaw.
What Should I Consider When Testing in the Public Cloud? by Ask PerfBytes
The move from monolithic applications in the private data-center to micro-services in public or even private clouds brings with it a whole new set of considerations when testing.
The Workarounds Special — 006 — The Evil Tester Show
Have you ever used a workaround to get something done? You betcha. In this show, I describe some examples and how important they have been in my testing and my career. And some of the risks you face when you use them.
Want more podcasts? Check out our automagically updated feed of podcasts related to software testing.
TECH
Activists Want to Ban Killer Robots ‘Before It’s Too Late’ by Stephanie Mlot
Activists are calling for global support of a law to ban fully autonomous weapons systems — ”before it’s too late. As talks on the issue resumed Monday in the UN, Amnesty International warned of a grim future controlled by soulless, bloodthirsty cyborgs.
An interaction designer tries to make a bank transfer by Chris Atherton
I live in Norway. My friend Hester is moving from Spain to Sweden. We both have British bank accounts. So if I want to send her money, the easiest way is from my UK bank account to her UK bank account. Yes? No. Here’s what happened.
Wormholes in JavaScript by Mathius Buus
Computers are interesting machines. From a theoretical point of view, we tend to think of them as automated mathematicians, or put another way, just really good at adding, multiplying, and working with numbers in general.
The mysterious case of missing URLs and Google’s AMP by Charlie Owen
When I saw a speculative article about Google wanting to “kill” URLs appear in my news feed, I didn’t think too much about it.
Using the React DevTools Profiler to Diagnose React App Performance Issues By swyx
The latest version of the React DevTools (released on Aug 23) offers a powerful new tool to detect and diagnose performance issues in your React app: the new Profiler tab!
UPCOMING MOT EVENTS
- Testing Ask Me Anything — How To Recruit A Tester — 8pm Tuesday 11th September 2018
- TestBash Germany — 1 day — Friday 14th September 2018 — Last few tickets!
- TestBash Manchester — 1 day — Thursday 27th September 2018 —
Only a few tickets left! - Test.Bash(); Manchester — 1 day — Friday 28th September 2018 — Last few tickets!
- TestBash Australia — 1 day — Friday 18th October 2018- Tickets On Sale!
- TestBash San Francisco — 2 days — Thursday 8th — Friday 9th November 2018 — Early Bird Tickets On Sale!
- TestBash Essentials Brighton — 1 day — Wednesday 3rd April 2019 — Subscribe to launch list
- TestBash Brighton — 1 day — Friday 5th April 2019 — Subscribe to launch list
- TestBash Netherlands — 2 days — Thursday 23rd — Friday 24th May 2019 — Submit your talk or Subscribe to the launch list
TOOLS
BBC Open Source
The BBC has been using and contributing to open source projects for as long as we’ve had a website. This site brings together all the open source projects across the BBC with links to all our documentation and source code and information on how to get involved.
OpenAddress
The free and open global address collection.
Progressive Tooling
A list of community-built, third-party tools that can be used to improve page performance.
mybrowser.fyi
When you land on the site, some tests are run on your browser. The tests are against data that any website can gather, but it displays the data in a format that’s easy to read. The hope is that the data will give developers some useful information about a user’s browser if they are struggling to track a bug down.
Top Chrome Extensions for Software Testers
Chrome extensions are tiny widgets that hide in your local browser and help you accomplish your testing objectives. Extensions that take away tedious work are a real lifesaver for software testers.
SECURITY
Exploit Published for Unpatched Flaw in Windows Task Scheduler by Catalin Cimpanu
A security researcher has published on Twitter details about a vulnerability in the Windows OS. The vulnerability is a “local privilege escalation” issue that allows an attacker to elevate the access of malicious code from a limited USER role to an all-access SYSTEM account.
Android Exposing Data Via Internal System Broadcasts by Harikrishna Mekala
The internal system broadcasts that happen inside the Android OS has been found to expose sensitive user and device details.
Air Canada warns that passport numbers may have been stolen in data breach by Ellen Tannam
Air Canada has revealed that personal data of 20,000 of its mobile app users may have been affected in a data breach. The airline said that it noticed “unusual login activity” between 22 and 24 August and “immediately took action”.
Cracked Logins of 570,000 Mortal Online Players Sold On Forums by Ionut Ilascu
Account information belonging to 569,703 players of the Mortal Online massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has been sold online several times since it was leaked as a result of a data breach.
Spyware Company Exposed ‘281 Gigabytes’ of Children’s Photos Online By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
A company that sells spyware to parents left the pictures of hundreds of monitored children online, only protected by a password that almost anyone could find, according to a hacker.
ACCESSIBILITY
The art of designing accessible websites by Davide Riva
8 tips to improve usability & accessibility of your web application.
Accessibility is not a feature. by Ethan Marcotte
I care pretty deeply about accessible design. I wouldn’t call myself an accessibility specialist, mind you, but I’ve always felt that “designing for the web” means ensuring our work is accessible as broadly as possible.
Variable Fonts and Dyslexia by Adrian Roselli
Dyslexia is not a black or white, on or off condition. Some with dyslexia report different challenges than others, ranging from typefaces to page layout to other factors.
AUTOMATION
Automated Testing with Mocha — Guide for Testing Javascript Apps by Abdus Samad
I am going to show you the basic and simplest way to start testing your applications using Mocha and Chai.
Mocking ES and CommonJS modules with jest.mock() by Dominic Fraser
In order for a unit test to be worthwhile it must be reliable; it should not be reliant on hopeful consistency of external dependencies in order to pass. Using Mocks gives us control over external dependencies — for the duration of the test we can replace code we do not have control over with code we do.
If Appium had a Brain by Jason Arbon
Appium has a brain today — yours. What if these test frameworks had a brain of their own?
Java Or Scala Performance — Which One Is Better? by Wendy Dessler
When trying to develop a new piece of software or an app, one of the first things a developer has to do is pick a programming language.
JOBS
Test Engineer (Southampton, UK)
The role involves testing of Windows server based components, client applications, Elastic search and Kibana. Including: system set-up, configuration, test planning, test case design and implementation, fault replication and analysis, testing of software fixes, build and deployment.
QA Tester (SaaS) (Brixton, UK)
Akkroo has now reached an exciting and important role in our journey where growth and restructure has meant we need someone to oversee, champion and embed QA as an integral part of our new product and engineering workflow.
Junior RPG Developer (Peterborough, UK)
Are you ready to build a career in the world of technology? We’re investing in the growth of our own talent through our RPG Academy scheme.
