229: A Journey through Test Automation Patterns with Seretta Gamba

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to find the Rosetta stone—the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics?

Today we’ll be Test Talking with Seretta Gamba about her new book, A Journey through Test Automation Patterns: One team’s adventures with the Test Automation Patterns Wiki that she co-authored with Dorothy Graham.

This book is like a testing Rosetta stone for anyone who is embarking on or is already developing automation testing scripts. Get clarity and actionable advice on test automation patterns to improve any automation testing situation you might find yourself in.

About Seretta Gamba

Seretta Gamba has 40 years experience in development and fifteen in test automation. After going through all the usual developer roles, in 2001 she was put in charge of test automation for her current company. She developed a framework that enabled her company to quickly get excellent results. Having talked about the framework in a couple of conferences she met Dorothy Graham and was invited to write a chapter in the book, Experiences of Test Automation. With Dorothy, she has been developing the Test Automation Patterns Wiki and is now writing a storybook about the patterns.

Quotes & Insights from this Test Talk with Seretta Gamba

• It’s better to be a good developer than a bad physicist. So I was a physicist but not that I was never an Einstein let’s say it like that and I did a lot of programming for my diploma. And I really enjoyed that. And so that’s why I decided to switch to testing.
• We wanted to do some case studies of people using the patterns or for not using. We tried spreading the word but absolutely nothing happened. After about a year I didn’t want to wait any longer. So I just invented the story style format of the book.
• I learned a lot from Physics that I could apply to testing. It has been very helpful in all my career. And the reason is that if you think about Physics is about everything because everything works by some kind of physical laws. So what you actually learned studying physics is how to solve a problem. And I always found that an advantage against people that had not studied Physics. And of course in physics, you do see patterns and that was probably also one of the reasons to help me see the patents in test automation.
• A Test Automation Pattern that is actually is simply a solution that somebody else used and it worked. And it has been used successfully again and again
• We are not talking about any actual tool and idea is that if we do then the WIKI would be old pretty soon because the tools change very fast. So we don’t want to talk about a tool. These patterns apply to any tool for any kind of company for any kind of test automation.
• My one piece of actionable advice is to simply go the patterns Wiki and use them!

Connect with Seretta Gamba

• LinkedIn: seretta-gamba
• Wiki: testautomationpatterns.org
• Book: A Journey through Test Automation Patterns: One team’s adventures with the Test Automation Patterns wiki

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