Testing Castlevania, Playwright to Selenium Migration and More TGNS136

tgnSep22Ep136.mp4

[00:00:00] What low-code, no code solutions should you try next? How can you migrate from Selenium to Playwright? Or even if you should. And which skill currently has a shortage of qualified folks? And how can testers learn from it? Find out in this episode of The Test Guild News Show for the week of September 22nd. Grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this.

[00:00:20] Joe Colantonio First up is a deal from this week's News Show Sponsor Katalon. So I speak with a lot of testers, and one tool many recommend to me is Katalon studio. Whether you're just getting started with automation or you're a seasoned pro, I've seen Katalon at StarEast and they give a demo. And Katalon showed me different ranges of features to meet testers wherever they are on their journey without requiring deep coding skills. And one feature, many testers tell me about Katalon on how flexible it is, so it allows testers to start with no code or a low code solution and then scale up to more advanced scripting if needed. If teams working across different platforms like mobile web or APIs, the ability to reuse tests can also be a big timesaver. The reason why I bring this up is that just brought to my attention they're running a special deal. Katalon is currently offering a 50% discount on licenses in October for new customers. It could be a good time to explore if you're looking for ways to improve your automation, especially as we start to lead into the new year. And as I always say, it's important to evaluate what works best for you, in your specific needs, in your workflows. Not every tool works for everyone. One tool may be better for others, so Katalon might be an option to explore if you're looking to enhance your test automation capabilities. Seeing is believing. Check it out for yourself. Head on over to TestGuild.me/Katalonnow and let me know what you think.

[00:01:43] Joe Colantonio All right. Speaking of tools, if you're looking to migrate from Selenium to Playwright, I have a new blog post I just came across from Niranjan and it's all about how Zenjobs tech team details their migration journey from Selenium to Playwright for their automated testing needs. And this article lines the motivation behind the switch, key challenges, and the substantial benefits that they're experiencing. As we all know, Selenium has been the go to automation testing for many years, and especially our companies like Zenjob. But they identified multiple defects, particularly in dealing with asynchronous events and browser capability issues. The investigative Playwright and they noticed that Playwright seemed to be a more robust alternative and it offered enhanced reliability, faster execution speeds and more comprehensive cross browsing support. And they go over the comprehensive migration process, which involved rewriting and reorganizing existing tests to leverage Playwright's advanced features like auto waiting, better API coverage, and improved debugging tools. And they outline how this transition required meticulous planning and team effort but has resulted in more stable and faster test runs. Of course, not everyone that uses Selenium should migrate. And as always, it should be done for a specific reason, not just to use the latest and greatest. And most folks are probably better off just sticking to their existing Selenium automation frameworks if they are stable and are producing good results for you. If not, maybe it's time to explore. But software testers should always be considering and evaluating new tools on a regular basis to be prepared to invest in transitioning to other tools or technologies if needed. Definitely an article you should check out. You can find a link for it in the comments down below.

[00:03:24] Joe Colantonio And speaking of new tools, as a tester, you should probably check out. I just saw this on Julia's post, on how her company Quality Works has just launched a new AI powered Jira plugin called AI Test Case Generator. And this tool is designed to help teams automate the creation of test cases directly within Jira often uses a more streamlined approach to managing their test automation process, and by leveraging AI, the plugin aims to improve efficiency and accuracy, hopefully, to reduce the time spent on manual test case writing. And the new plugin is now available on the Jira marketplace. Does it work? Well, check it out for yourself and see if it does for your situation. Obviously, this is not going to be a silver bullet, but it might help you with test case generation or at least get some conversations going within your teams. And once again, you can find that in the link down below.

[00:04:12] Joe Colantonio This next article goes over a feature of Playwright. We mentioned earlier, and it's all about Playwright API for automation. In this blog post recently published by Cerosh on Link, it delves into the Playwright API for automation, offering a detailed hands on guide designed for software testers. And the post highlights some of the benefits of Playwright as a testing tool, illustrating its capabilities with a step by step instruction for set up writing tests and running them effectively. And Cerosh begins by explaining how to install Playwright and its dependencies fall by setting up the environment. He underscores the simplicity of writing initial tests and the value in creating scalable maintainable scripts. And the post also shows how the process of running parallel tests, capturing screenshots for debugging and integrating Playwright, continuous integration CI pipelines could be done. And a big shout out to Alan Richardson as well, to Evil Tester, who he gives props to as well. Definitely another must read. If you're using Playwright. Check it out. Let me know your thoughts.

[00:05:12] Joe Colantonio This next post also came my way via LinkedIn and it's how Yogendra has just published a new article that explores how RAG retrieval augmented generated apps can be applied to software testing. This article goes all over What is RAG? Why you should use it? If you don't know, it combines retrieval based A.I. models with generative models as well. And it helps ensure that data used in test generation requirement validation is accurate and up to date. So RAG apps can assist in creating test cases, analyzing requirements and even automated user scenarios. And by leveraging real time data retrieval testers can maintain test accuracy, making it a valuable tool for continuous testing. This post includes how to get started implementing by setting up a RAG system locally on your machine using open source solutions. It also provides some examples of using RAG for testing activities for you to try, like creating a test Oracle and generating and analyzing test cases. If you want to get your hands dirty, try something for yourself. Here is something you should definitely check out and you can find a link for it in the links down below.

[00:06:16] Joe Colantonio This next article is a really fun use case of using testing for a cool game, Castlevania. David from Antithesis recently showcased how its platform was used to conquer the classic NES game Castlevania by identifying overcoming obstacles with advanced tests coverage techniques. And a lot of people on LinkedIn were saying this was a great read. And the article dives into how their tool effectively explores vast states spaces and complex systems. Much like tracking how to find bugs and software, and the same approach can be applied to modern systems, helping testers find edge cases and hidden bugs. It also goes over how we antithesis used their deterministic hypervisor to explore the game systematically, focusing on navigating difficult stages and overcoming barriers like the stoppers and stage six. And the testing method to identify challenges in grid based exploration, refining the system's approach to covering all states in the game. And this approach mimics how they identified how to reach bugs in software by adjusting inputs and focusing on unexplored states. Definitely a fun read you should check out for sure.

[00:07:22] Joe Colantonio And also, by the way, just leads into, if you don't know opening for Automation Guild 2025 on 9th annual online event. The early bird is now available for you to register for to get the deepest discounts once we go live and the theme of the event is classic games like the NES that we just covered. Things like that to give it a fun gaming vibe. Definitely check this out as well. You can find the link for this also down below.

[00:07:49] Joe Colantonio Up next is our webinar of the week that is happening tomorrow. I'm going to be hosting this webinar on how A.I. can be applied to automating enterprise app testing from Salesforce to SAP. See how A.I. driven tools can reduce errors and hopefully accelerate your release cycle for package based applications, which I know a lot of people struggling with. Joining me will be Tal and Guy from BlinkIO. And we're going to explore the current market challenges, discussing how AI can dramatically enhance the speed and accuracy of testing processes and show you exactly how your team can leverage these tools to achieve faster and more reliable results. And by attending, you didn't get an exclusive look at a live demo showcasing A.I. in action. Register for that down below. Hope to see you there.

[00:08:34] Joe Colantonio Do you know which labor gap now stands at 40 million open jobs? If not, check it out. So I found this on Shannon's post on LinkedIn, and she points out how the cybersecurity industry faces a significant labor shortage with approximately 4 million jobs vacancies going globally. And in response, she mentions how her company intends or has successfully raised 33 million in funding to advance its A.I. driven cybersecurity tool aimed at mitigating this workforce gap. And this TechCrunch article goes into detail how intensive A.I. tools are designed to automate threat detection and response, significantly reducing the need for human intervention. And by leveraging AI, the company aims to provide organizations with robust cybersecurity solutions minimizing the impact of the labor shortfall.

[00:09:23] Joe Colantonio And to help you, I just released yesterday a new podcast on why security testing is an important skill for QEs with Boris talks all about why security testing is more important now than ever for testers and ways you can learn security to help improve your career options as well.

[00:09:40] All right. For links of everything of value we covered in this news show, head on over to the comments down below. So that's it for this episode of The Test Guild News Show. I'm Joe, my mission is to help you succeed in creating end-to-end full-stack pipeline automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers.