Windows 7: Three steps back...

...since my new Laptop has "freezed" three times during the last couple of weeks. Hardware reset has been the only option since the screen has became black and the activity handler does not respond within 10 minutes (which is so long my patience holds in these situations)...

No traces whatsoever what could be the cause in the log files...Dell hardware, Windows7 or a combination?

Windows 7: One step forward...

...to faster start-up time (compared to XP)

I recently switched laptop to a Dell with Windows7 onboard. So far I think it works pretty well...I really like the preview open documents functionality and the activity bar improvments which is a small productivity booster for those of us that works with many open windows.

Although it was a bit sad to retire my old IBM T43...the most reliable and robust PC I have ever had (so far...)

SQL: MS SQL Server 2008 Management Studio - First impression

For those of you who are not familiar working with MS SQL Server product family, the program Mangagement Studio includes SQL Query and Object Explorer among a lot of other useful features for administration of databases. As a tester, knowing SQL and AUT Database objects is essential if you want to be really successful in your work in my opinion. Last week I upgraded to the 2008 version and found two new features:

1. Debugging SQL/Store Procedures
2. Intellisense writing SQL

Need I say more?

Issue-based development

Call me an "old-fashion" tester...but I prefer to have some hints about the content/changes of a new AUT build in order to easier determin the test scope (we build pretty frequently). However getting this type of information is often not that trivial...

Fortunatly I am blessed with a magnificent source control/issue handling tool: AccuRev/AccuWork.

They way we use it could be called "Issue-based development" I guess. If you are interested in how AccuRev works take a look at their web (please note that I am not sponsored, AccuRev is fantastic but quite expensive in my opinion).

Here is short descripion on how it works in our implemention:

Developer must have an Issue record ("Planned activity" or "Problem report") to promote changed or new code (in my case most often Java files). That means that you can see what files that are bound to the issue and on top of that you can also see the code change(s) by using Diff against basis-function (I am glad I understand Java code a little bit better now...). Also in each Issue there are other important clues, especially in the fields "Description", "Design information", "Release Note info" and "Test info" (if filled out properly)...

Testing Dashboard part 2

As you already may know...I like dashboards (probably too much...)

After I was being aware of the Google Chart API and I also found this JavaScript implementation, I am thinking of using the Google-o-meters showing different coverage metrics in my auto-generated real-time test report which is based on both on subjective conclusions as well as logged regression test result data...




Building dashboards is rather simple, the hard part is to collect proper test status data...

QTP: QuickTest Professional Unplugged by Tarun Lalwani

Tarun Lalwani's book QuickTest Professional Unplugged covers QTP basic as well as advanced features.

I have used QTP since 2001 (version 6.x) and if I have had this book from the start, a lot of hours and frustration had been saved.

Tarun has prior the book, contributed to the QTP community with numerous of high quality articles and forum post replies over the years. I recall an old article about Descriptive programming (DP) which made me switch from OR to DP Big-bang style (I don't regret it...).

My favorite parts in the book are the chapters regarding RegExp, IE/Word/Excel objects, HTML DOM and of course the advanced section at the end. But this book include a lot of other QTP/VBScript features as well and is well suited both for newbies (you should have some programming experience at least) and advanced users.

This is a must have for any person using QTP and/or VBScript-based automation!

Watij: Brief progress report

I have been evaluating Watij lately and here are my conclusions so far for some automation features important to me:

IDE

Since I am from the QTP/VBScript world I still struggle a bit with the Java syntax and OO...furtunatly my IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) has very good refactoring features (and other develop-friendly features as well) so it is not necessary to make perfect code/structure from the start.

GUI test execution speed

Not as fast as QTP but very close. Since the source code is available I managed to change a hard-coded timeout property and I guess there are several others that you could tweek for faster performance.

Test object model

Quite simular to Descriptive programing in QTP.

QTP example: Browser("Google").Page("Google").WebEdit("q").Set "Watij"
Watij example: ie.textField(name,"q").set("Watij");

Have not explored all possibilities with dynamic test object handling in Watij yet but at least getting all links in a frame into an array was very simple.

Community

The QTP community is awesome and Watij's dito seems ok but rather small.

Pop-up handling

QTP is very good handling pop-ups but have a weakness running such actions in a locked workstation. Watij has so far also been very good at this (except for an authentication dialog which I handled with a quick and dirty java robot solution) and IT WORKS IN LOCKED MODE! This feature alone allows unattended GUI tests being run 24x7...This seems to good to be true so I will do some more testing on this using remote desktop -> server...