Deep Dive is now optional

Like stated in the previous group session of our testing course: personal exercise Deep Dive is not mandatory anymore. I decided to make it optional: if you want you can still continue one of our group sessions at home and return your notes/code to me. If you do it, you will get +1 to your grade.

Guidance on expert groups

Most of the expert groups were already formed after the first lecture. The first thing to do is to share your contact info, get together and start learning your topic. To summarize:

• learn your topic properly in the group: you will teach it to others
• prepare a 30 minutes long teaching session for your topic
• if your topic is a tool, demonstrate it in action
• if your topic is a tool, remember also to bring to your session two laptops with the tools installed: we will use them in home groups 
• you can be creative, even if your topic is theoretical (your 30 minutes doesn't have to be a slide show)
• return your presentation material (slides, notes, explanation on what you are going to do etc) to me to get some feedback latest on the Friday before your expert session
• prepare yourselves to be experts the whole session

So you have an expert role in one session. In rest of the sessions you can just enjoy and learn in your home group. I will inform you your home groups after all expert groups are formed.

Some guidance on your personal excercises

Like discussed in today's introduction lectures, the main point in all of the personal exercises is the "doing" part. Be alert, concentrate and observe. You should do all of these on your own time (= outside of the group sessions). So,

• timebox your effort
• don’t be too formal
• you can be creative
• you can get help from me in any issues
• you can return your work in English or Finnish
• any software = commercial, open source, your own, even written for the purpose
• it’s better to do little with full focus than lots of things in a sloppy way

Group Session 4: Notetaking

Taking notes while your testing is critical to your success. You can do it with traditional way (pen & paper), visually (doodling, mind maps), using screenshots and recorders, or notetaking tools. Use anything that suites your needs best. For this session examine at least three different notetaking methods/tools and present them to your fellow students.

• Read: http://blog.eviltester.com/2013/09/10-experiments-to-improve-your.html

• Install and learn to use RapidReporter
• Pick additional interesting tools from the article and learn to use them also. At least two.
• Bring two laptops with the tools installed to the session.

Group Session 4: Session-based Testing

When there are multiple players, complex software and limited resources, the effort put to testing must somehow be managed. When using exploratory testing as an approach Session-based Testing is one option. So learn the method and present your findings to rest of us.

Start from:

• www.satisfice.com/articles/sbtm.pdf‎
• http://staqs.com/docs/sbtm/ (go through the links also)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOQuzQNvaCU

Group Session 3: Manual testing tools for web applications

Even when you test something manually you might get some help from tools. And now we are not talking about test management tools or similar. Scope also pure note-taking tools out. We are talking about browser add ons, small utility programs, services available in Internet. Be creative, pick your favourites and bring your knowledge into the session:

• open a browser, hit a web page and start browsing
• try to think about areas where a tool might help you if you would have to tell someone what is working and what not while your browsing
• if you have trouble in finding any, ask for help
• pick some of the tools and learn to use them
• demonstrate them in the session (you can for example demo 3-5 in detail and only list the rest of your findings)
• bring two laptops with your selection of tools installed

Group Session 3: Exploratory Testing

Moving on to manual testing. We will use exploratory testing as our approach. Lots of information available in the Internet, so you must choose your sources carefully.

Start from:

• http://www.satisfice.com/articles/et-article.pdf
• http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/678
• http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST/exploratory/
• youtube

Group Session 2: Selenium WebDriver

Then some automated tests for user interface. We will try Selenium WebDriver and see where we get with it.

• Install Selenium WebDriver
• Learn to use it
• Demonstrate it in the session
• Bring two laptops with Java development environment for creating Selenium tests (ask after first session help for getting also cucumber setup on those machines). Prepare the environments so that we can just start writing tests.

Start from

• http://www.seleniumhq.org/projects/webdriver/
• youtube

Group Session 2: UI Test Automation

Moving on to try something related to test automation. In the theory part you should concentrate on benefits and challenges (in general and compared to other automated tests) in UI test automation. Try also to present some possible solutions/patterns that could be used to help in keeping your UI test automation code clean (Page Object, Control patterns). You can also list briefly a selection of tools available for different platforms (Web, Qt, Windows, Android ...).

Start from:

• http://fczaja.blogspot.fi/2011/01/what-is-ui-test-atomation-about.html

• http://gojko.net/2010/04/13/how-to-implement-ui-testing-without-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot-2/
• http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/maintainable-automated-ui-tests/

Group Session 1: Cucumber and Gherkin

To experiment with specifications written as examples, we will use Cucumber. Or more specifiably, the Java version of it: cucumber-jvm. Here you should concentrate mainly on tool usage: the processes (BDD, Specification by Example) are handled in the theory part.

• Install cucumber-jvm
• Learn to use Cucumber and to write Gherkin
• Demonstrate the tool
• Prepare two laptops with environment for Cucumber Java development (Java and cucumber-jvm, eclipse(?), project setup where we can start writing scenarios)

Start from

• http://cukes.info/
• http://aslakhellesoy.com/post/11055981222/the-training-wheels-came-off (check also the links t the bottom of page)

Group Session 1: Specification by Example

The theory part of first group session concentrates on Specification by Example:

• aka Acceptance Test Driven Development
• Huge topic → concentrate on trying to look at it from tester's point of view
• Lecturers will help on material 

Start from:

• The book
• http://red-badger.com/blog/2012/07/31/what-is-specification-by-example/
• Bridging the Communication Gap
• http://janetgregory.blogspot.fi/2010/08/atdd-vs-bdd-vs-specification-by-example.html

Exercise 4: Search for the Holy Fail

Competition details to be announced.

Exercise 3: Deep Dive

Our group sessions might sometimes feel a bit short. Deepen your experience based on your own interest.

Update (07.12.3013):
Deep Dive is not mandatory anymore. I decided to make it optional: if you want you can still continue one of our group sessions at home and return your notes/code to me. If you do it, you will get +1 to your grade.

1. Take a group session and continue it from where your group left.
2. Return specs, code or notes on what you did to me, latest on 18.12.

Exercise 2: What Is Quality?

Good quality in software is something we usually aim for. What does that mean?

1. Read "Software Quality Characteristics".
2. Take a piece of software and evaluate it in terms of one quality aspect.
3. Return your thoughts to me, latest on 18.12.

Again, timebox your work. Don't return huge documents, informal notes are enough. If you don't want to write clean/readable notes or want to have more feedback, we can discuss your thoughts over a cup of coffee.

Exercise 1: Test Design

First we will familiarize ourselves with things related to test design. Here's what you should do:

1. Read "The Little Black Book on Test Design". You should also check the links, references in the parts that interest you.
2. Take a piece of software. Any.
3. Create test ideas for it based on the book.
4. Return them to me, latest on 01.12.

Sounds simple, but might be tricky. The material is a bit awkward, so you have to choose what to use. Mention the parts of the material you used when returning your ideas.  You can either concentrate on one idea source or try multiple sources in lesser detail.

Use correct abstraction: ideas should be specific for the software you chose. Timebox your work, you don't have to return a huge amount of ideas. You can take easy on analysis (=choosing what are the most important things to test in the chosen software), just pick some parts of the book and start experimenting/creating ideas.

Don't write huge detailed documents. Don't write test cases. Use informal ways (checklist, pictures, mind map, one pager or something else). Ask for help if you don't know what to do. You can use English or Finnish.

Schedule for year 2013

It's time for a course on Software Testing. Again. This year our main theme is number four.

Let's start with some important dates. Here they are:

30.10 Wed 10 -12: Introduction and course arrangements
31.10 Thu 10 - 12: Introduction continued
20.11. Wed 10 - 14 B2033 : Session1(Specification by Example & Cucumber)
27.11. Wed 10 - 14 B2033 : Session2 (UI Test Automation & Selenium)
01.12. Sun: last day for returning "Test Design"
03.12. Tue 10 - 14 B2033 : Session3 (ET & Manual Testing Tools)
11.12. Wed 10 - 14 B2033 : Session4 (Session-based Testing & Notetaking)
18.12. Wed: last day for returning "What is quality?", "Deep dive"and "Search for the Holy Fail"
19.12. Thu 10 - 12 B2033 : Maaret Pyhäjärvi on Testing
19.12. Thu 13 - 15 B2033 : Teemu Vesala on Security Testing

All groups must give their notes/plan/slides for feedback to course personnel on last Friday before the corresponding session.