Automate like Harry Potter, e2e vs UI test and More TGNS121

[00:00:00] Joe Colantonio What does Harry Potter have to do with AI in automation testing? Do you know the difference between end-to-end testing and UI testing? And why should you learn more about the future of AI in automation? Find out in this episode of The Test Guild News Show for the week of May 19th. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this.

[00:00:19] Joe Colantonio Before we get into it. If you haven't already, please make sure to subscribe to our Test Guild LinkedIN News Show newsletter that I release every week so you never miss another episode. And you can find that in the links down below.

[00:00:31] Joe Colantonio First up is a free training webinar alert. What's it about? Let's check it out. So Katalon has put together an awesome training roundtable on the future of testing, a roundtable discussion on AI and automation testing taking place June 4th. And what's great about this webinar, it leverages insights from their State of Software Quality report, which included over 4000 QE professionals which assembled industry leaders from Deloitte, Cigniti, QualityKiosk, Xray, and a bunch more for this high-level discussion. The experts are going to break down for you what you need to know to succeed in the upcoming years, so register to find out cutting edge QE strategies to attain high quality software, and round tables is going to explore topics like overcoming key challenges and implementing powerful AI powered QE solutions, real-world insights and best practices from leading QA experts, and forecasting the future of AI adoption in this ever changing, QA, QE, AI testing world we find ourselves in. So support the show by registering now and securing your spot for the webinar using the link Testguild.me/katalon and you can also find that link down below. Hope to see you there.

[00:01:45] Joe Colantonio All right, next up is probably the biggest news item of the week. And that's all about the new GPT 4 model that launched last week. Let's check it out. So Microsoft has announced the launch of OpenAI's new flagship multimodal GPT 4.0, now available in preview on Azure. And this advanced model integrates text vision audio capabilities, offering a bunch of dynamic and engaging AI experiences. So GPT 4 is accessible through the Azure Open API service, currently supporting text and image inputs, but plans to include audio and video in the future. So for testers and developers, one of the cool features of this is it can help you with code reviews. I saw another demo where it can understand customer sentiment, or you can actually tell how your customers are interacting with your application based on that sentiment, which is awesome to know how your user experience is going on. I've been talking about this for a while, but the multimodal aspect of it is really going to expand what can be automated because it has integration of text, vision, and audio inputs allows for a much more comprehensive and realistic test scenarios. Also, the advanced processes and capabilities enable faster and more efficient testing processes, and testers can leverage GPT 4.0 to develop innovative testing strategies that cover a broad range of inputs and outputs. So it's definitely something you should check out. I think it's can help you create more powerful tools and techniques to enhance your testing capabilities. And also, a lot of people are talking about this in the testing community. For example, Cody from Katalon brought this up on a recent LinkedIn post on his thoughts, which I'll have a link for as well. Also, James Walker breaks down how this helps you create visual models to help you with your testing also, which is another use case. So a lot of cool things going on. And a lot of folks in our community are talking about it. So keep your eyes on it and you can also learn more about it and try it for yourself in the link down below.

[00:03:38] Joe Colantonio Next up is a thing that I know a lot of people struggle with, and that is knowing the difference between end-to-end testing versus UI testing. Do you know the difference? If not, you definitely should check out this recent article by the Test Lynx Noemi Ferrera, all about the distinction between end-to-end testing and user interface testing, and this article goes in and discusses this in detail. The post explains while UI testing focus on the look and feel of the final product. End-to-end testing covers the entire application flow from entry to exit points, often including UI tests as part of its broader scope, and some key points highlighted in this post are UI tests involves visual and CSS validations, and these tests often performed at the top of the test pyramid, requiring fewer tests to avoid excessive maintenance. And also it highlights how end-to-end tests really encompasses the entire user journey, verifying that all components work together as attended. And it checks the end-to-end behavior of the application, closely mimicking real-user actions. This post emphasizes the importance of maintaining a balanced test pyramid, advocating for fewer, more targeted tests at the top and extensive unit and integration tests at the base. Another great post, Noemi, and you can find it down below and read it for yourself.

[00:04:56] This next article comes your way via Vinay, who tagged me in LinkedIn to let me know he just released this article and it's all about Generative AI data-driven testing, a magical example, and this post dives deep into the exploration and the intersection of Generative-AI and data-driven testing, presenting it through a creative lens of the Harry Potter universe, which is always fun. And this article highlights the potential of AI tools particularly Google Gemini AI, in facilitating robust and efficient testing processes. He also covers Jackson, which is chosen for API testing over Rest Assured, and he gives his reasons why. He goes over Reqres.in which a friendly API platform for practice and API testing, and also Google Cloud API library, which provides extensive tools and products accessible via APIs. So definitely a good read to let you know how you can automate data generation and testing to help you reduce your minimal efforts and increase productivity. It also helps you learn how to combine tools like Jackson and other tools through a reliable API type flow, and also how to use different platforms. Definitely a cool must-read that you should check out as well, and you can find it down below.

[00:06:07] Joe Colantonio So a few weeks ago I bumped into my friend Darrel Farris at StarEast and he told me about how he's putting together his first onsite conference called Amplify. What's it about? Well, I wanted to bring it up. It's a cross functional conference, at networking event that brings tech leaders together to share perspectives on software development and digital experience delivery. And the reason why I bring this up is I get a lot of questions from folks saying, hey, how can I speak at an event? When is there call for speakers? Why do I bring this up? Well, Darrel, let me know at the call for speakers is now open. If you have an idea or a great session you think would be a benefit to folks that go to this event, you definitely should find this link down below and submit your session now. And hopefully, you get in and let me know what you think if you do attend or if you do get accepted.

[00:06:55] Joe Colantonio This next tool has been around for about a year, a year and a half, but it has officially been released. What is it? Well, so it is how JetBrains has officially released Aqua, which, if you haven't followed along, is a development environment specifically designed for test automation. And Aqua aims to streamline the software testing process by allowing test automation engineers and developers to quickly build various types of tests, including those for user interfaces and APIs. And this automated testing is crucial for debugging and ensuring software is production ready with fewer errors or security issues. So it talks about how over the year or so, they found out what people were struggling with and baking in for this official release. And it goes over how it supports major testing frameworks including Selenium, Playwright, and Cypress, and also has support for a bunch of different languages like Java, Katalon, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL, making it really versatile for different testing automation needs has integration with different tools, it has a test runner, a logger, AI powered code completion and refactoring capabilities as a web inspector, it has a bunch of things. I think it has a database management and HTTP client support for Docker and a bunch of different things, and the latest release is now available for download. If you still haven't checked out Aqua, here's your chance to check out the official release, and you can find it down below as well.

[00:08:20] Joe Colantonio Do you know what Flame graphs are? Well, it's not as painful as it may sound. I have a great tutorial on how to get up and running to understand all about Flame graphs, and it's from the folks for Grafana, specifically from Marie Cruz, who works for Grafana Labs, who explains how they work in a recent tutorial. And here's a quick rundown. It goes of how profiling measures and analyzes program runtime behavior, capturing snapshots of CPU, memory, or IO operations, continuous profiling monitors the data continually offering deeper insights. And an example base on Marie, they illustrates how Flame graphs show where time is spent, and it just has a really good breakdown of how to use them. How to get started.

[00:09:00] Joe Colantonio Next up in security news is a real-world insight into someone's journey into ASPM. What is ASPM? Let's check it out. So Mark Lambert, who is a chief product officer at ArmorCode, shares his insight for over two years of deploying application security posture management across various enterprises. And the first one, he goes over how ASPM versus AST tools. It also goes over managing vulnerabilities and also how AI and automation is set to help you with the application security by hinting at both routine and complex task.

[00:09:36] And for links of everything of value we covered in this episode. Definitely check out all those links. 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.