Articles

Writing Good Test Cases

We all know writing test cases is an integral part of the testing activity. In order to write good test cases, we must first understand what a test case is and why we need to write test cases. Can’t we live without writing test cases?

Anand Gupta's picture Anand Gupta
Thoughts from Mid-Project

My team is in the middle of one of the hardest projects—we call them "themes"—we’ve ever tackled. We’re a high-functioning agile team that has helped our company grow and succeed over several years now—we “went agile” in 2003. Here’s one thing I know for sure: No matter how many problems you solve, new challenges will pop up.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin
Transitioning to Agile Testing

Your developers are already working feature-by-feature in iterations, but your testers are stuck with manual tests. How do you make the leap to agile testing when the nature of agile's iterative releases challenges testers to test working segments of a product instead of the complete package? In this column, Johanna Rothman explains that the key challenge resides in bringing the whole team together to work towards the completion of an iteration. Only then will the testers—and the entire team—know how to transition to agile.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Multi-user, Multi-process Test Automation

There is a saying about how to make software: First you make it work; then you make it good; then you make it fast. If you have working test automation, and if your test automation is finding bugs, then the next step is to make your tests run fast. This article talks about handling two things you will need to address to make that happen: users and processes.

Chris McMahon's picture Chris McMahon

Better Software Magazine Articles

Usability Testing with "CAN I USE THIS?"

David introduces a unique approach for application usability testing. Each letter of the memorable "CAN I USE THIS?" will assist with test idea generation.

David Greenlees's picture David Greenlees
Lessons Learned from Ancient Wisdom: A Software Review Story

Lessons learned long ago from reviews and inspection can be effective today, particularly in collaboration within agile teams. Learn how an organization used review techniques as part of its agile collaboration, including the advantages and potential problems of this ancient wisdom.

Dorothy Graham's picture Dorothy Graham Robert Sabourin
How Do You Write Good User Stories?

Expert answers to frequently asked questions. In this issue, David Hussman explains how to write good user stories.

David Hussman's picture David Hussman
Busted: 5 Myths of Testing Regulated Software

Testing regulated software is often seen as a tedious job that generates stacks of documentation and is subject to crippling rules. See five of these assumptions exposed as mere myths, and learn how regulated testers can use the same approaches, techniques, and tools at any other tester's disposal while still passing a process audit.

John McConda

Interviews

Melissa Benua Whole Team Quality: A Conversation with Melissa Benua
Video

Melissa Benua, director of engineering at mParticle, chats with TechWell community manager Owen Gotimer about the importance of whole team quality, how to get started using the test pyramid, and how developers can start writing testable code.

Owen Gotimer's picture Owen Gotimer
Open source software development manager Matt Attaway Agility through Exploratory and Automated Testing: An Interview with Matt Attaway
Video

Matthew Attaway has worked as a tester, developer, manager, and elephant trainer. He currently manages the open source development group at Perforce Software. In this interview, Matthew talks about automated testing and agile as well as dealing with excessive test documentation.

Jonathan Vanian's picture Jonathan Vanian

Conference Presentations

Smart Combinatorial Testing
Slideshow

In the right hands, combinatorial testing can be a powerful testing strategy to reduce the number of tests. Unfortunately, when used improperly, it can hurt more than it helps. Ingo Philipp explains that there is not one single combinatorial testing technique that guarantees success. 

Ingo Philipp
STAREast Logo Continuous Integration Testing Techniques to Improve Chef Cookbook Quality
Slideshow

Chef, Puppet, and other tools that implement “infrastructure as code” are great for configuration management and automated deployments, but it is difficult to test these infrastructure scripts before putting them into production. Since infrastructure as code is a relatively new...

Glenn Buckholz
STAREast Logo The Canary in the Coal Mine: Create an Early Warning Tool to Help Your Testing
Slideshow

Many organizations are using virtualization technology to increase the number of available test machines. However, this increase creates a new dilemma for testers. How can you confirm that all test systems are running properly and not showing signs of serious defects? Since many companies...

Stephen Burlingame
STAREast Logo Testing at Startup Companies: What, When, Where, and How
Slideshow

Startups are becoming increasingly prolific—technology startups even more so. CEOs are recognizing the need for quality. Their users are their growth, and if they can't retain users, their growth slows or stops. So quality matters. How do you convince the rest of the company that test...

Alice Till-Carty

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