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Build Rules: A Management System for Complex Test Environments Due to the interaction of many software components, there is increased complexity in testing today's software solutions. The problem becomes especially difficult when the solution includes combinations of hardware, software, and multiple operating systems. To automate this process, Steven Hagerott's company developed "Build Rules," a Web-based application with inputs from their build management and test execution systems. Using logical rules about the builds, test engineers define the characteristics of the build solution points. To deliver the latest and greatest builds that meet the characteristics defined for each solution point, the system dynamically translates these rules into server side nested SQL queries. Learn how their efficiency and accuracy has improved significantly, allowing test engineers to stay on track with many different build combinations and to communicate results to outside departments and customers.
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Steve Hagerott, Engenio Storage Group, LSI Logic Corporation
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Your Development and Testing Processes Are Defective Verification at the end of a software development cycle is a very good thing. However, if verification routinely finds important defects, then something is wrong with your process. A process that allows defects to build up-only to be found and corrected later-is a process filled with waste. Processes which create long list of defects are . . . defective processes. A quality process builds quality into the software at every step of development, so that defect tracking systems become obsolete and verification becomes a formality. Impossible? Not at all. Lean companies have learned how wasteful defects and queues can be and attack them with a zero tolerance policy that creates outstanding levels of quality, speed, and low cost-all at the same time. Join Mary Poppendieck to learn how your organization can become leaner.
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Mary Poppendieck, Poppendieck LLC
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A Flight of Fancy - The Evolution of a Test Process for Spacecraft Software The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory formed an embedded software group for producing space flight software. In addition to defining the process for developing and testing this software, the group had to quickly apply and adjust the new processes to a series of four spacecraft missions, starting in 2001, as resources were over-extended and schedules were compressed. Brenda Clyde shares highlights, complexities, and differences of testing these spacecraft missions in the last four years. She describes the initial test process, the problems encountered during the test phase for each mission, the resolution of the problems, and the incorporation of the changes into the next mission. Learn about the challenges the Applied Physics Laboratory faced testing embedded software and the process in place for testing their next spacecraft mission.
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Brenda Clyde, Johns Hopkins University
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Testing XML Documents for Information Content More and more applications are generating XML documents as their primary or secondary outputs because XML is much easier to parse than traditional formats. However, simple string comparison is often too naïve to properly test XML documents. Instead, they must be evaluated for information content. XML has many syntactic options that make testing output more difficult than testing traditional, less rich formats. Elliotte Rusty Harold explores the challenges and pitfalls of testing XML documents and, even more importantly, offers suggestions of what to check and what to ignore. He presents valuable tools for testing XML-parsers, schemas, DTDs, canonical XML, and XPath--and discusses automating tests by writing xUnit test cases that use XML APIs such as DOM to compare the actual to the expected output.
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Elliotte Harold, Polytechnic University
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Free Test Tools are Like a Box of Chocolates You never know what you are going to get! Until you explore, it can be hard to tell whether a free, shareware, or open source tool is an abandoned and poorly documented research project or a robust powerhouse of a tool. In this information-filled presentation, Danny Faught shows you where open source and freeware tools fit within the overall test tool landscape. During this double session, Danny installs and tries out several tools right on the spot and shares tips on how to evaluate tools you find on the Web. Find out about licensing, maintenance, documentation, Web forums, bugs, and more. Discover the many different types of testing tools that are available for free and where to find them. Danny demonstrates examples of tools that you can put to use as soon as you get back to the office.
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Danny Faught, Tejas Software Consulting
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Open Source Development Tools: Coping with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt Using open source tools in a development and test environment can be a big relief for your budget. However, open source remains a foreign and often frightening concept for many developers and organizations. Today, open source options are available for all types of tools used in the development process. In this session, you will gain a better understanding of the tradeoffs between choosing open source and commercial tools. In addition, you will learn about the wide variety of open source tools available for many operating environments and how to locate the most robust ones. Danny Faught, who has actively evaluated open source tools as they have evolved over the last five years, provides an honest analysis of the benefits and difficulties you may encounter using these tools for development.
- Open source tools to consider for you and your team
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Danny Faught, Tejas Software Consulting
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Design Testability and Service Level Measurements into Software Design and architecture decisions made early in the project have a profound influence on the testability of an application. Although testing is a necessary and integral part of application development, architecture and design considerations rarely include the impacts of development design decisions on testability. In addition, build vs. buy, third party controls, open source vs. proprietary, and other similar questions can affect greatly the ability of an organization to carry out automated functional and performance testing-both positively and negatively. If the software or service is delivered to a separate set of end-users who then need to perform testing activities, the problems compound. Join Jay Weiser to find out about the important design and architecture decisions that will ensure more efficient and effective testability of your applications.
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Jay Weiser, WorkSoft
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Quality Assurance and .NET: How to Effectively Test Your New .NET Applications If your organization is migrating to .NET, you need to be concerned about how .NET will impact your department's testing and quality assurance efforts. First you need to understand the technology underlying .NET applications; then you need to learn what is different about testing applications using this technology. Dan Koloski provides an overview of .NET technologies and the special considerations you need to know for testing them. Learn about testing practices that have worked for Dan and others to help your organization deliver high quality .NET applications.
- The .NET architecture stack
- Common and uncommon risk factors with .NET applications
- The pitfalls of testing .NET technologies and tooling available to help
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Dan Koloski, Empirix Software
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Getting a Grip on Exploratory Testing Many testers have heard about exploratory testing, and everyone does some testing without a script or a detailed plan. But how is exploratory testing different from ad-hoc testing? In this interactive session, James Lyndsay demonstrates the approaches to exploratory testing he often uses at work. With specially built exercises, he explains his thought process as he explores the application. He analyzes applications by looking at their inputs and outputs and by observing their behaviors and states. He employs both cultural and empirical models to establish a basis for observing whether a test succeeds or fails. Through this process, you will gain insights about how to improve your own exploratory style.
- Using active play to parse and understand a sample application
- Analysis of inputs, outputs, and their linkage to enhance explorations
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James Lyndsay, Workroom Productions
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Beyond GUI: What You Need to Know about Database Testing Today's complex software systems access heterogeneous data from a variety of back-end databases. The intricate mix of client-server and Web-enabled database applications are extremely difficult to test productively. Testing at the data access layer is the point at which your application
communicates with the database. Tests at this level are vital to improve not only your overall test strategy, but also your product's quality. Mary Sweeney explains what you need to know to test the SQL database engine, stored procedures, and data views. Find out how to design effective automated tests that exercise the complete database layer of your applications. You'll learn about the most common and vexing defects related to SQL databases and the best tools available to support your testing efforts.
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Mary Sweeney, Exceed Training
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